


Tessellation

by lawlipoppie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Worship, Drunk Sex, Friends to Lovers, Heartache, Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Sex Toys, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Build, mention of alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 73,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawlipoppie/pseuds/lawlipoppie
Summary: Sehun meets Baekhyeon without truly meeting him 6 times, and after the 7th, they are friends, and will be, still are, three years later, when Sehun is gone, mindless, not drunk, but not sober either, in the foyer of Baekhyeon’s apartment, where Sehun even has his own slippers, a hand, a palm on Baekhyeon’s face, in love beyond words, as he leans in to kiss him.





	Tessellation

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt no. 22
> 
> This fic is an indulgence. I always wanted to write a friends to lovers fic that went a bit more in depth, for I find this premise quite a delicate matter, especially if it’s a same-sex friendship.
> 
> I also wanted to write about a strong, young love, kinda foolish and kinda consuming, like a first love’s ought to be, and the utter selflessness that comes from falling too deep. Extreme pining and the crushing fear of unrequited feelings. The whole shebang. 
> 
> It was incredibly easy for me to write such a long fic about someone being in love with BBH. Which must be telling enough, because believe me, I love BBH more than Sehun does here.
> 
> Thank you Miss Ali and Miss Dove and Miss Joanie (of course you’re on this list too, silly) for beta-ing, given god knows I’m a little baby in need of a fuckton of assurance. 
> 
> And lastly, the writing style is a tiiiiiny bit experimental, tuned to Sehun’s character specifically, but I hope you like it! :D

 

 

 

 

It’s over a drink that he first sees him.

He is a celebration of sorts. Drinking and dancing in an underground club, downing shot after shot. This is supposed to be the celebration. The end of his first year. He’s not alone, not exactly, his colleagues are somewhere in here, eaten whole by the crowd, chewed up and vanished.

There are lights, darks, glass, spirits, tangy breaths, loose tongues. The air is misty, musty with body heat. It’s an awkward, horny inferno.

Sehun is drunk, holed up into a corner, his mind and his body not his own, and his eyes shameless and bored as they settle on the person before him: a tiny-ish dude leaning against the bar. He has a stain on the cuff of his grey shirt, a splatter of amber - coffee, juice, rum - could be anything. His hair a melted wreck. It was once coiffed maybe, worked up to impress, but now it is snarled, wispy. His hand runs through it, fingers parted wide, tips slightly turned in a scratch, and then it ends on his nape, captures it, holds, as he allows a laugh, not mirthful, just sloshed, to stretch his lips. Bared teeth twinkle. His eyes scrunch up into an unidentifiable clutter of plait skin and black pupils. It’s a broad, arresting expression for something stemming from so little subtext, so little depth. Because as far as Sehun can see, he isn’t laughing at _anything_.

Sehun’s glass nearly falls from his hand. He barely catches it, some liquid wading over the brim and falling onto the surface of the bar counter. He’s been leaning on his elbow and his arm fell asleep on him. He grimaces through the prickles, takes another sip of his drink and lets it sear through him. The back of his throat already tastes of coal.

Sehun finds out the name of the tiny-ish dude a mere second later as he introduces himself to a stranger with a well kissed mouth, courtesy of a litter of other stranger mouths. Might be a fake name with how drawled it is, but not with the confidence crisping it. Sehun just happens to be close enough to even taste the aroma of that name. Baekhyeon. Sounds too good, clings to Sehun’s ears too well to be a fake one.

Then their hips meet. Not hands, not lips, not anything but hips. It’s more of a collision, not really a slotting, artless, as strangers are ought to do, but no less confident, no less desirous. Baekhyeon bends to whisper, “I’ll take you home, baby,” in the ear of the stranger. Sehun is right there, approximately shoulder to shoulder with him. He hears it clear enough that he might have as well purred it directly to Sehun. But it’s not. It’s only meant for the stranger. Could be a girl, a boy, a woman, a man, anything in between or no one at all – Sehun cannot notice anything beside him. He takes calculated breaths of his scent, cologne, skin, a day’s worth of work, of danger, of living a life Sehun knows nothing about. They’re the last words, the last image before he disappears.

This is how Sehun meets Baekhyeon, for the first time, without meeting him truly.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun adjusts the strap of the backpack on his shoulder. There’s a book inside whose corner keeps digging for his organs. It’s a sliver of a turn, momentum, inattention, but enough for him to catch onto the sight. A single take, a single look. Sehun recognizes him.

It’s not winter anymore, not officially, but still, he appears underdressed for the weather, and overdressed for the location. They’re on the subway. Among all the greys, the tiredness, the dolour, there is the glaring shine of the patterned handkerchief tucked in his pocket, the golden pin on the lapel of his blazer. His hands are trembling, fingers wrapped around his phone. His face dons a clinical, shrouded look of concentration. It appears more intense under the wan pallor of the light.

He’s playing a game. The sounds from it mix with the din of the moving train. Sehun bets on it being a car chasing one.

His legs are pressed together, knees touching; a curled, sheltered form. He’s mouthing ghosts of exclamations, shards of curses intermingled with a few lip bites, his whole body animated.

Nobody is paying attention to him. All eyes are downcast, closed, or blank. There isn’t even all that much to pay attention to, just a man, just a man in a suit playing a game on his phone on the subway. As common of a sight as it could be. There are at least a dozen people doing the exact same thing in this car alone, and yet Sehun can’t look anywhere else. He keeps staring, nearly misses his stop, and has to run out of the train with the books in his backpack stabbing him.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun couldn’t sleep last night. It wasn’t stress, or an existential crisis, but a fucking roach. A _very_ huge one that he had found in the kitchen, and Sehun couldn’t kill it, lost it, and the paranoia of not knowing where the motherfucker went, along with the potential of waking up with it on his face anytime tormented him all night. So Sehun is grumpy and sleepy and not entirely capable of self-control and sitting at a table at a fast food chain, a tray full of fries and chicken in front of him.

Before he finishes his first drumstick, he sees Baekhyeon for the third time. He has been there all along, since before Sehun even arrived perhaps, alone at a table near the wall. Sehun didn’t notice him at once because there was someone else seated in front of him.

He is wearing a suit, like the last time. Like the first time. Baekhyeon seems to always be wearing suits. Though it doesn’t look like one. It’s not just a blazer, a shirt, slacks. Not a uniform. Not a cerement. Not forced. But different, picked with care, all the fabrics seemingly poured specifically on him, to charm and to blind.

He has glasses on now. Big, black, blocky. They hide his cheeks full of fries and emphasise the red, bloodshot, lurid irritation of his eyes. His hair is perfect. Could be a different colour. But this is day, noon, and Baekhyeon is not here now to get into anyone’s pants, skirt, hole. He looks good, neat. Too much so.

Sehun rips a piece of chicken and dips it into the sweet sauce to dull the spice, chews slowly, tries to be discreet in his scrutiny. He isn’t close enough to catch details, but not so far that he cannot discern the fact that Baekhyeon’s eyes aren’t crying, but he is. Silent, wary; so that not even his body knows it. But he halts chewing. His hands shake. Something within him is crying, latent, ardent. He stops, breathes out, adjusts the way his glasses sit behind his ears. Blinks, once, twice, at the tears that were never there and will never be.

Sehun’s not, in fact, discreet at all. He knows. He rips another piece of chicken. Fingers too greasy. Fragments of cornflakes gather under and around his nails and he already knows they’ll be hard to clean off. His hands will feel dirty all day.

Baekhyeon then grabs his sandwich off his tray.

Sehun doesn’t know what that one tastes like. He always orders the same thing from here, since he only comes by for a specific craving.

Baekhyeon eats it all. Fast. Not forced. Peckish, pleasured. Like it’s the best damn sandwich in the world.  There is a bit of white left on his lip, mayo, yogurt, who knows what the fuck that sauce is, and his lips are of a red deep enough that even that sheer white stands out. He even gets a smudge on his glasses -  they are that big. And then it’s over, one last big, big mouthful, his cheeks big and full and his mouth gathered and puckered as it moves. He swallows, cleans his mouth with his tongue, then with a tissue. 

He looks up, at nothing in particular, with one last, long suffering blink. And then he grins. Really grins, the tips of it pulled as far as they could go.

 Sehun scrambles for a fry to hide his staring when Baekhyeon looks around and his gaze falls on him. He grabs and chews a piece of napkin instead. Tastes like nothing all the same. He should have dipped it in sauce.

When Sehun dares to snatch a glance again, he finds Baekhyeon still grinning. It’s a small one now, barely curled, reserved, how only a merry, true grin can be. Then he reaches for his drink. Licks his lips, wipes his hands – they’re pretty, proportionate, the sort of hands one cannot bypass the prettiness of – and then he’s gone, too fast, too peppy on his steps.

Sehun didn’t even see him get up. There is no trail of him, no nothing. At the table, there is no tray left, not even a crumb, the fabric of the seat is smooth, as though nobody ever sat in it.

Sehun meets Baekhyeon for the third time without meeting him. Again.

 But maybe he didn’t really. He looks down at his food while licking his fingers, tasting ink along with the chicken, fried and crisp and tasting like all the will to live he never even had, and he wonders if he can hallucinate from fried chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

This time, he’s gone before Sehun even catches on. Sehun only looks up from his phone when they softly bump shoulders. It’s midday, on a sidewalk rounding a park, all scattered with spring flower petals and swarming with people in a rush. Sehun turns and looks after him, seeing the back of a suit, and a woman by his side that is about the same height as he is. A few steps later, someone tall veers behind him and he’s out of Sehun’s sight, just a feeble tendril of cologne left in his wake. It’s more pleasing than the verdant quality of the air, fresher, sweeter, and Sehun stays for a few more moments before he keeps on sprinting to his class.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is at the supermarket, reluctantly shopping for some groceries. He really didn’t feel like coming tonight, but he’s had one too many dinners of takeout in a row. He is just grabbing some soy sauce, tossing it in the basket besides his greens when he makes to turn.

Baekhyeon is on the opposite aisle. He wasn’t standing there when Sehun arrived.

He’s dressed about the same, fancy, but worn. It’s nearing midnight. Shirt wrinkled and hair loose and glasses on. In the light, there are visible fingertip smudges on the lenses. He’s trying to decide between ready-fried and raw black bean paste.

Sehun gazes at his basket. It contains two boxes of pre-packaged cupcakes, a six pack of mini Hite cans, and some produce.

Baekhyeon appears plays a little game of some kind, his finger moving from one jar to the other with a rhythm before his finger lands on one. It’s the ready fried one. He carelessly drops it inside the basket, crushing the small bouquet of chives he has in there, then he’s gone.

Once again, he’s gone.

 

 

 

 

 

It takes so little now for Sehun to recognize him. He just stands out, especially to Sehun’s eye that has become vigilant to any patterned silk and wavy, messy hair. He only sees a fragment of him before Sehun is sure that he’s now caught Baekhyeon watching a street performance. There are people singing, a few with instruments, some dancers too. The whole ensemble. He’s close to the singers, closest of all spectators perhaps, sticking into the bubble of the performance, too cheerful and enchanted and he bobs his head along.

It’s Hongdae, on a Tuesday night, too deep into it, and Sehun is only here because he had a group project to do with someone that ran late. He checks the time again, and panics slightly, looking to run already to catch the subway before it closes.

Sehun waits till the current song ends, till Baekhyeon breaks into applause before he leaves. He spares a glance back before taking the corner, seeing Baekhyeon throwing a handful of bills into the open guitar case on the ground by the feet of the singers.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is in college. Occasionally in the actual building, in an actual class.

But mostly, Sehun is in college, and that’s a phase. An intermission, a cliché. He eats too much junk food, has no time management skills, sleeps too little, would drink anything caffeinated, jerks off all the time to relieve stress. That’s the phase. A caricature. That’s who Sehun is when he meets Baekhyeon for the last time as a stranger.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun’s been alive, sometimes living too, for 20 years, and it has never happened before to see someone random so often. Colleagues from the same school on the same bus don’t count. Not neighbours. Not frequenters of the same coffee shop. There is no real proximity, not knots of interest, no common friends. A coincidence, no matter how independent, has to have linkage to it. But this doesn’t have any.

The seventh time Sehun meets Baekhyeon, they talk, and Baekhyeon isn’t wearing a suit.

Sehun’s on a bench in a park lining the Han river. He’s finally finished his essay, after seven hours of agony, and he’s hungry as fuck. He has two rolls of kimbap, barely obtained from the ajumma of the shop downstairs, for she was just closing. He paid the price of three rolls for them and they are uncut. Doesn’t matter. It tastes like heaven.

He has his legs stretched out out out, as far as they could go, for his bones and his entire existence hurt from how long he’s been cramped inside bent over his desk.

After he reaches for the second roll, half a minute later, he looks to the side, at the basketball ground, and sees a lone figure running around with a ball. It’s a handball, not a basket one.

Before swallowing his mouthful, he can already tell who it is. Baekhyeon, in pyjamas. Definitely pyjamas. The kind with a collar and buttons and pants with elastic, some scuffed shoes on his feet, his hair, long, seemingly yet another colour up into a little ponytail at the top of his head. He is not wearing a suit, and it takes a few looks before Sehun believes it.

He returns to his roll. He wishes he had a drink with it, but he isn’t going to move his ass to get one now. He chews slowly, sluggishly, until he’s hit on the head out of nowhere. He sees the small ball bouncing to the ground. Weirdly, it’s less painful and more awakening than the night air.

Baekhyeon is jogging towards him, legs tangling. He must’ve been at it for a while, if he’s that tired. Then he’s standing in front of Sehun, panting, sweaty.

Sehun rubs at the spot on his head – greasy roots, damn- and takes the last bite of his kimbap, too big, before he pecks into the wrinkled foil for the last few stray grains of rice.

“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” asks Baekhyeon.

_Are you okay?_

The first time Baekhyeon addresses him it’s out of concern. Something about this feels definite. This is an end to something.

Sehun swallows and nods, raising a hand instead of speaking, for his throat feels congested.

Baekhyeon’s eyes are slightly wide. His eyes, when wide, with their droopiness, make the concern looks curiously, disarmingly genuine. A drop of sweat, linear, cuts over his cheek, glinting in the street lamp.

“Not gonna die from it,” Sehun musters.

Baekhyeon stares at him, brushing damp baby hairs away from his forehead. “Wow, how reassuring.”

Sehun would really like some water. He keeps swallowing drily.

“You’re a student, aren’t you,” Baekhyeon says then, clear of wheezing now, and so assured that it’s not even a question. “I’m pretty sure you need that head in perfect condition.”

“I don’t feel like you’ve unperfected its condition,” Sehun babbles, and he’s still thinking in essay terms. Next, he’s going to cite a source on Baekhyeon or something.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

He has a headache, one that tormented him for days, throbbing and stabbing. “Well, it does, but not from that,” Sehun bemoans.

Baekhyeon smiles, the classical display of empathy. “Wanna play with me?” he asks, as though playing will solve everything

Like they’re little kids.

He’s recovered from his earlier exhaustion, and Sehun recognizes an excited man when he sees one. And Sehun isn’t used to being still for such long periods of time. The ache is deep. He could definitely use some exercise.

“Take it easy on me,” Sehun says, getting up, stretching his arms above his head. “I just got out of hibernation.”

Baekhyeon laughs, his eyes disappearing from it, and they jog down to the ground.

They play. An unstructured game that doesn’t require them to know each other in order to be enemies. Sehun isn’t in his prime form, and Baekhyeon is _fast_ , practiced, the movement of his wrist swift. He scores a million more balls than Sehun. He doesn’t give in though, he fights till the end, getting a couple of goals in. He’s breathing hard and he’s warm and his blood is pumping, and this is what a living body should be doing. Sehun can enjoy just that.

The game ends suddenly, anticlimactic, after a too long of a while. The ball drops from Sehun’s hand by accident. Rolls out of the ground and into the darkness, disappearing. They just don’t bother going after it. A fitting end.

Sehun is thirsty as fuck now, and Baekhyeon passes him his water bottle after chugging down half. Sehun gratefully takes it, since he’s closer to dying from dehydration than from whatever germs Baekhyeon is carrying. He has a pack of tissues too, and he hands one to Sehun as he wipes down his forehead. He just sticks it and leaves it there. Sehun is too tired too and does the same.

“So who did I just beat?” Baekhyeon inquires, splaying on the ground.

Sehun stares at the sky for a while before he understands. “Oh, I’m Sehun.” So Sehun knew him all along, whilst Baekhyeon plays with strangers he doesn’t know the name of. “You?”

Baekhyeon laughs, spent, and runs his hands through his hair again. The elastic is nearly falling off, and he carelessly reties the pony tail. “I’ll tell you when you beat me.” Wink.

Sehun chuckles, choked. He plays along though.

“I’m hungry,” Baekhyeon says. “I have to feed you, since I both injured you and worn you out, you know.” An off-handed tone.

Sehun is hungry too. The rolls before were nothing. So he agrees.

Baekhyeon buys him a trayful of food from the very same chain fast food Sehun’s seen him at. He has no qualms about walking around in pyjamas. He barges in, ball under his arm, and orders two of the sandwiches he did the last time. Sehun asks for the same thing.

They don’t steal fries from one another, but steal sauce.

“What do you study?” asks Baekhyeon. A question bland enough. Polite enough. It easily slithered through their wolfing.

Sehun blanks out when he thinks of it. He doesn’t remember right now. It’s completely out of his mind. “I don’t know. I don’t remember,” he responds weakly.

Sehun feels full now, but he keeps on eating. Out of stress, it must be. There will be another exam in a short while, for which he needs some textbooks that cost a kidney. And in front of him is this stranger – no, not anymore – who offers to buy him a muffin too.

He feels off about this, a bit like he’s lying. Sehun knows Baekhyeon more than Baekhyeon knows him. Not with much, but it’s something compared to nothing.

Baekhyeon eats pretty slowly. He’s licking a strand of lettuce covered in mayo from the side of his sandwich when he suddenly scrutinizes Sehun.

“I think I’ve seen you before,” he says. His head tilts, left to right, lettuce on his teeth.

Sehun is pretty nondescript, maybe taller than most, maybe he has a resting bitch face, but he doesn’t think there’s anything to make him stand out. Sehun plucks a chocolate chip off his muffin.

“Yeah, me too,” he drawls, mouth too sweet. “You’re kind of hard to miss.”

“Am I?” Baekhyeon perks, face brightening at the same time it falls into thought. “Especially like this, right?” he says, hands lifting to tighten the ponytail at the top of his head. The hair is sturdy, shiny, and so it raises tall, like a little palm tree in the centre of his head. Ridiculous, but not ridiculous on him. Baekhyeon smiles, greasy.

“Totally,” Sehun says. His tongue is tired and his mind is tired and he really can’t muster answers any more complex.

He looks down at his tray. Everything’s gone. Baekhyeon’s is empty too. The receipt is tucked underneath the box of his sandwich and he catches the hour on it. Then the looks at the clock on his phone. It took them fifteen minutes to finish. Baekhyeon is wiping his hands with the wet tissue, licking his lips, getting up.

Outside of the restaurant, all they exchange is a good night, one genuine that promises nothing.

They part ways just like that, walking in opposite directions.

“I’m Baekhyeon!” Sehun hears a shout, after a few steps, the voice thinned from the volume. Sehun stops, turns, but all he sees is Baekhyeon’s back, and him dribbling the ball as he jogs lightly. He isn’t looking back.

“I know,” whispers Sehun to himself. It’s only for his ears to hear, his little harmless secret to keep.

 

 

 

 

 

Seoul is a loopy, bereft city, tall and sparkling and busy. Sehun is part of it. Another character, as significant as it is insignificant. He’s dreamless, drifting, but determined.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is waiting in line at the local dal.komm for a cup of coffee. It’s early. It’s crowded. The line is going slow. Even the baristas are asleep. Sehun is tempted to take a mini-nap on the sweets display before it’s his turn to order. He catches with the corner of his eye the man standing behind him. White collar job uniform and hair, middlescent, and he’s staring. Staring at Sehun. Seizing him up and down as he squints.

Might be impatience.

Sehun looks away, drags his feet a few more steps and places his order. A plain iced Americano, for he cannot stomach any sugar or cream before working out. His shift at the gym starts in about ten minutes. He’s in workout gear already, just a small bag with his shoes and his books over his shoulder, as he has to run directly to class afterwards. Sehun rubs at his eyes, patiently waits for his coffee. 

The staring man catches onto him before he can leave with a crisp “Excuse me.”

Sehun stops. Up close, the man’s features are softened, supplicating, and peculiarly keen. He places a business card in Sehun’s hand. This man wants to scout him for modelling. He speaks about it with honed, scripted enthusiasm. The offer doesn’t sound bad at all.

“Will I get paid for it?” Sehun doesn’t beat around the bush. Priorities. He doesn’t have time to give to things that don’t earn him anything.

“Yes.”

Sehun doesn’t really like what he’s studying. It’s what the market wants most right now, what his brain is best at providing. Seems like a good enough combination, except Sehun feels nothing towards it. Computer science. Fun but also not really. So he says yes, pockets the business card, and doesn’t leave without assuring the man that he will not ghost him. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kyeongsu. A colleague. A friend too. Not a best friend, for their bond is based primarily on stress and curses.

They stuff themselves into a corner of the library and gossip over textbook gibberish. Indolent and careless. It’s him that Sehun texts when he can’t find something, when he needs a movie recommendation, and any nonsense too, some links to mildly interesting things here and there. It’s depthless but extensive, given he sees Kyeongsu like 10 hours a day sometimes, legs flocked over one another in the lounge room. They eat together often too, because Kyeongsu lives in the dorm and he can’t sneak anything in there, not that Sehun hasn’t helped him tape sandwiches to his stomach before.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun calls the number on the business card, makes an appointment for an interview.

On the first day Sehun is already eighty percent naked, just in a pair of boxers, a doily over his shoulders and hair pushed back as a small hoard of people make him turn this way and that all the while whispering commentary.

This is not how Sehun should find out about Baekhyeon being the boss, not how Baekhyeon becomes a little less of a stranger to him.

There is the faintest crumb of recognition on his face the moment he breaches the circle of onlookers and sees Sehun standing there. It’s clinical, the way he stares at Sehun, calculative, objective. A small frown too. Abstract intrigue. The gaze to be given to an art exhibit.

“I want to see him go first,” he says to the woman with the huge camera strapped around her neck.

There is a badge clipped to her shirt. Mina. A gorgeous little woman. She seems sleepy. But then she claps her hands and everyone dispels like ants, making space, as she directs Sehun in front of a white screen. “Stay put for now,” she says, before she takes some distance and begins taking photos. Sehun is a good boy and listens and does absolutely nothing and hopes that will do just fine.

He sees Baekhyeon standing by the main desk, looking at the screen displaying the newly taken photos. He’s wearing a suit. A sort of washy lilac.

Mina stops after a few minutes. Now everyone crowds around the monitor and he’s left there standing. He fiddles in place until the circle breaks, and then it’s Baekhyeon who is coming towards him.

“So we might be keeping you,” he says. The cold, focused exterior is gone.

“Might be?” The doily is itchy, and he’s not sure if he can take it off yet.

“A few more pairs of eyes have yet to approve of you, but you already have the majority.”

Oh. Wow. And to think he really did nothing beside standing. “Those extra pairs of eyes decide the pay too?”

“No, that’s what I do,” Baekhyeon replies with a grin. It’s polished, here. It’s the grin of a businessman. He takes the doily off Sehun’s shoulders. “Go home now. Go study. You probably won’t have this job beyond thirty.”  He leaves the doily next to Sehun’s discarded clothes. “We’ll talk contracts next time, for now just have this.” He places a card on the pile, waves at Sehun, and then dissipates through the milling people.

Sehun looks at the card. It’s a coupon for a free meal at a chain soup house.

 

 

 

 

 

The gym Sehun works at is populated by rich people as well as poor ones. It’s a weird mixture of extremes explained by the fact that the little gym is placed right behind a high rise luxury apartment building that delineates the main street with a pretty façade, while the suburb starts behind it, with midget buildings and fenced houses.

Sehun lives on an oktapbang on one of these buildings, only shy of the reek of money. He’s moved here from Goyang to be closer to his university, so he doesn’t have to be up before daybreak to go on an endless commute. Instead he can wake up to the sound of a very talented rooster singing its song a few buildings away.

He doesn’t curse when he wakes up. He’s studied a lot for his entrance exam, got a decent grade, got into a decent university. He doesn’t have much to complain about, really. Sehun just goes through the motions, follows along, lives. 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes a signature, and then Baekhyeon is Sehun’s indirect boss. Or direct boss. He’s not entirely sure what exactly he does as the creative director of this fashion brand. 76MM. Its branches touch upon just about all the subsets of the fashion realm. Clothing and shoes and jewellery and lingerie. Sehun is to do modelling for the lingerie line, mainly, for now.

They’re in Baekhyeon’s office, so spacious and so white and so nondescript. He’s the centrepiece of the room instead, full of colour and full of smiles, layers upon layers of them.

“Would be best if you _never_ upset Mina,” he concludes with. He’s already uncrossing his legs. “She holds a vengeance,” he bends in to whisper, circumspect.

“Noted.”

Sehun will come in for shoots whenever it is needed, likely on weekends, since a good chunk of their other models are students. The income, though not much, will sit nicely in his pocket.

Sehun gets to his feet, and shakes hands with Baekhyeon. It’s a brief contact before Baekhyeon waves, turns away to sit at his desk.

On the way out, Sehun realizes that there won’t be any more coincidences. They’re not strangers anymore. They’ll meet more often now, and it’ll be all deliberate.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun isn’t a qualified instructor. But Park ajeossi doesn’t particularly care for that. He’s there for a few of hours to make sure people don’t punch themselves in the face with a dumbbell or coil themselves on the machines in a way they shouldn’t be. He only paid enough attention at the PE classes in high school to learn basics. He’s perhaps found too much solace in them, in running, moving, as a method of keeping his head clear in a period where he had to jam it full of useless information. 

It doesn’t feel like a job. He can do his own workouts while he’s there, can improve himself. It gives him a sense of discipline, and some extra money that he can spend on random things aside from what his parents are giving him.

This isn’t how his life should be, as much as he knows. He doesn’t know how it should be, but not this. Something, something is awaiting.

Sehun keeps going.

 

 

 

 

 

In the changing room, most often, Sehun has bumped into Jongin. They traded a number of bows, summary smiles, a few curt, empty greetings, brushed a hand or two as they changed, but the names, they only find out when Mina shouts for the both of them to hurry the fuck up. She was the one late, though, and they are still fumbling with the clothes – he has _no_ idea what body part this velvety thing should be worn on – and in their hastiness share a smile. It’s not a rushed one. But one of understanding, cracking slightly into laughter. “I’m the Jongin,” he says, in a voice that is sweet, unlike the way he speaks, little, very few words, and the way his whole demeanour changes when on set. Sehun tries to slip on the shirt without messing the makeup. Jongin tugs it down his back for him.

He’s famous, apparently, but not him, not this fumbling boy with puffy hair, but that one on the glossy pages with the killer smirk. He does podiums too, apparently. Sehun’s been advised to learn from him, not his persona, but the technicalities, angles and poses. Though Mina often said it’s his inexperience, just his crude body awareness that gives Sehun’s allure.

“I’m the Sehun,” he replies at last, cleaning his throat. It’s the first time he talks today. Hasn’t even had any water. He swallows, tries again, “Sehun.” And he’s done, he thinks, with the clothing. The stylist abandoned them today for some reason.

“Lets get this over with. M’hungry.” Jongin elbows him lightly, beaming.

They tangle on the set, a coordi spritzing them with water constantly, going for the wet, canonical hot look. The lights are diffused, only the heights of the exposed skin wearing defined patches of luminescence. He just has to stand, tangle with Jongin, touch himself, touch Jongin, use the props a bit. They are nearly naked now, shirts open and dripping and translucent, as they lay draped over furniture. The set is akin to a ballroom, a few people behind, dressed properly, then there is the two of them, basically naked, glistening, sinewy and blasé.

They can have jjajjangmyeon since there won’t be shoot for a few days – no one wants to edit out bloated stomachs.

“How did you get here?” Sehun asks, mouth full.

They’re the same age. There is no formality between them. Sehun sips the rest of his soda. He’s still thirsty, and doesn’t want to get another one, and easily, between bites, Jongin pushes his own towards Sehun.

“Someone saw me dancing. Mina, personally. She was quite drunk too,” he swallows, wipes his mouth, picks a slice of radish. It leaves fine pellicle of yellow liquid on his lip. “She said I move so good I must be amazing at staying still, as if that makes any sense.”

“So you’re her golden boy.” Sehun hasn’t seen the man who scouted him at the café. He’s heard around that he’s someone entirely unrelated to the creative department, and Sehun just happened to catch his eye.

“Hey, I heard Director Byeon favours the hell out of you. “

Sehun keeps slurping the drink. It’s flat, thankfully, and he can drink it without it tickling his throat. “He favours kind of everyone. That’s just him, I think,” Sehun mutters, unsure, as he tries to pick up the small broken noodles drenched in black sauce from the bottom his bowl. The chopsticks are too big and bulky. His forehead tightens with annoyance before he manages to pick one up after breaking another with the force.

“I don’t feel favoured by him,” Jongin hums. “Just…valued. It’s different.” There is black sauce by stuck the end of his mouth, dry now. He tries to wipe it off a few times, in vain, until he gives up, takes the soda back and leans back in his chair.

“I really didn’t notice anything,” Sehun says. Even now that he’s made to think of it, he really can’t pinpoint any behaviour from Baekhyeon that indicates any sort of extra like towards him. Though they haven’t spent all that much time together. Baekhyeon is amicable, it must be that. Extremely so. And while Sehun wouldn’t one to be tugged into being close to someone based on so much extravaganza and niceness, he cannot help but see a genuineness in Baekhyeon, and play right along with him.

“You’ll see it later then.” His eyes are soporific, but sharp, deep. It sounds like a warning.

Sehun stretches out. His back still hurts from last night when he stayed crouched over the table. It’s really not good for his posture. Nor for anything. He stays like that, with Jongin, for a while longer before they part ways.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s only two weeks after the conversation with Jongin, and Sehun shouldn’t be surprised, but really, it was telling from the very first time they spoke. From how Baekhyeon played with him even though he didn’t know his name, even though he had no idea who he was, when he fed a little student and insisted to make his mood brighter.

From this alone, it shouldn’t be so surprising that they’re friends now.

Too fast, too blinding, too off, like a train wreck, or something, anything equally jarring, awakening. It’s a smooth transition from what they were before – nothing and into this friendship.  A segue devoid of awkwardness thanks to the nature of Baekhyeon’s speaking, prodding, the utter openness Sehun has when he’s around Baekhyeon.

They don’t act like they’ve known each other for a lifetime, but like they don’t even need that, to know, just to click. It barely took a month, and now Baekhyeon is everywhere. In the cracks where his life was dull, there is Baekhyeon now, sprouting like a little flower, daring and strong and pretty.

There are a few gaps here and there, minute, essential details that they don’t know about each other. Things that have to be said, not shown. Sehun doesn’t know his past, nor what he’s been through. The few occasions when he doesn’t exactly know how to take him, how to respond, how to not. Doesn’t know what irks Baekhyeon, what he likes.

This is not necessarily important for them to get along, to have a good time, but still, it’s unsettling that Sehun only knows that he can safely address Baekhyeon by “hyeong”.

But their friendship is all settled, made official, the very moment Baekhyeon calls him Sehunnie once, just out of the blue, and then this is how it is, from then, Sehun addresses him by hyeong, or Hyeonie, when he’s feeling bold. It’s all it took, this one word, for them to become friends.

And a thing he knows is that Baekhyeon is enamoured with the pastries from a bakery tucked in a rayless nook between buildings. He asks Sehun to meet him there now, and by the time Sehun arrives, Baekhyeon already has incriminatory white powder around his mouth. On his fingers, black, graphite, around his eyes, black, eyeliner. Colour can’t stay away from him.

“Why do you always dress up like this?” Sehun inquires today, ripping off a piece of his chocolate croissant. It’s something he’s been wondering for a while. There are people who take extra care with the manner they dress, but with Baekhyeon the attention given seems excessive. Though the clothes have an insouciant manner of sitting on his frame. Pretty, alone, but draped with a fear, as if the clothes don’t really touch his body.

“Because I’m going to be wearing clothes anyway,” Baekhyeon says, stealing a piece of Sehun’s pastry. He only had one, tiny, for as delicious as they are, they’re not healthy at all. Sehun allows him this indulgence. “So I might as well wear beautiful ones. I’m going to be eating anyway, so I might as well eat something good. I’m going to be living anyway, so I might as well make the best of it where I can.”

It’s a beautiful manner of thinking, a beautiful rule. It could be applied to anything and everything.

It’s the first thing Sehun learns from Baekhyeon. He takes it to heart.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun knows how to do all the nifty shit like coding and Baekhyeon is all too impressed when he finds out. He came for a shoot early and the set isn’t all done, and he has a little while to spare for this assignment. Baekhyeon leans in to look at what he’s working on, whistling slowly as he sips his coffee.

It’s for his last exam of the semester. And then it’s vacation.

He’s still learning. He’s not very good, truly. But Sehun doesn’t remember the last time he’s impressed anyone with anything. Baekhyeon is entirely too vocal about how cool it is as he watches Sehun tapping away at his laptop.

He moves across from Sehun afterwards, slurping his drink, and maybe it’s the waft of the coffee and him flipping through pages that Sehun finds so allying.

He’s almost done when his eyes slip towards the clock. “Fuck,” he mutters. He was supposed to be on set a while ago. He looks over at Baekhyeon.

“I gave them a break, you can finish up for now,” he says, noncommittal, as he continues writing on his files.

Sehun relaxes. “Ah. Thank you, hyeong,” he says.

Baekhyeon smiles, not looking up. Sehun’s gaze lingers for a second too long on the curled tail of his lip where it collides with his cheek.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun gets used to incorporating this side little job into his routine. It’s irregular, the shooting at odd days and odd hours and odd places, but it’s all familiar now. He’s part of the shebang. There is a lot of glass and a lot of skin and some interesting people. Sehun fits right in.

Mina shouts little things at them as they pose, fiddle with the props. “You’re really good at having hair on your head,” she says, making Jongin jam a hand into his hair. “And an ass. You’re great at having an ass.” Sehun extends his leg, pushes his hip to the side.

Sehun sees a few of the pictures at the end. They look amazing. He looks amazing. Sehun nearly can’t believe it.

 

 

 

Baekhyeon is married.

Sehun finds it out from afar, from the other side of the room, when he declines going out to a hoesik with the rest of the staff. “I’m having dinner with the wife today.”

Of course he’s married.

That’s what people do.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m not sure what colour this is going to turn out on you,” Baekhyeon says, massaging his head with a gloved hand. “But I have some left over. Want to try?”

Sehun only came here at this late hour for a brief fitting, and now he just wants to take a piss. And here is Baekhyeon, in the company bathroom, when everyone has already gone home, dying his hair. He uses a tissue to wipe at the colour that smeared over his hairline as he peers at Sehun through the mirror.

“It should be a purple-y red on me, but it will be darker on you,” he comments distractedly. 

Sehun looks at the bowl of the mixed dye on the counter, the half empty tubes next to a small mountain of Baekhyeon’s accessories. He notices the plastic bag tied around his shoulders.

“Okay,” Sehun shrugs a few seconds later. It’s too easy to tell Baekhyeon yes, and as he smiles, victorious, and mixes more dye, Sehun absently thinks he’ll probably never tell Baekhyeon no.

He’s all covered then too, Baekhyeon working quick to brush all the cream into his hair before they’re both sitting on the counter, swinging legs as they wait for thirty minutes. The quietude is deep, penetrating, with the building being pretty much empty. It’s too late for any other souls to still be around. They only have themselves.

“I mean, why the hell are you doing this here, hyeong?” Sehun inquires tonelessly. Not really that he minds, but there are other places more fitting to do this. And more comfortable.

His legs stop kicking, and he turns to look at Sehun. With all the dye sticking his hair flat, his stained ears stand out. He kind of looks like a mouse. “I just didn’t feel like going home yet.” A shrug so big that the bag over his shoulders slips.

Sehun can understand that. He’s had days like this too. “Okay, hyeong,” nods Sehun.

The face Baekhyeon makes is somewhat relieved, then happy. As though he was expecting a worse reaction from him. Sehun smiles back and keeps swinging his feet until Baekhyeon matches his rhythm.

It’s Baekhyeon who washes out the dye first. The sink turns into a river of merlot, before he lathers something from a packet into his hair. He gives himself two horns on each side of his head, then pats Sehun’s butt for his turn.

Sehun studies himself in the mirror. At the very tips, he has the relics of a terrible bleach job he did in the last year of high school, out of impulse and stupidity. It didn’t look bad. It’s a very dark tint, barely a suggestion of a colour through the black, and it only shows on the ends of his hair. Maybe it will show up more when it’s fully dry, which he can’t accomplish now given he only has some thick paper towels to dry his hair with.

Baekhyeon ruffles his hair, runs his hand through it repeatedly, then sticks his head directly under the glow of the light. “How does it look?” he inquires.

It’s quite a vibrant purple in fact. His skin looks bright, and his eyes too. “Pretty great.”

“You too!” Baekhyeon responds immediately, winking at him, before he starts cleaning up the mess they made.

“So we did that,” Sehun says when they’re down, in front of the building, outside. The sun has long set.

“We did that, Sehunnie.”

 _Sehunnie_. His tone is jubilant. As it always is when he addresses him like that. “See you tomorrow!”

And then, Baekhyeon is waving at him, and walking, smiling, his hair wet and shining in the streetlamp.

It’s an image that remains in Sehun’s head till he gets home.

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes they both agree on sleeping in rather than waking up for a legitimate breakfast, and they meet at the food cart right across the street from the 76MM building. Sometimes, Sehun goes to the gym first, gets in his workout too, and rushes here to satiate his overwhelming post-workout hunger in Baekhyeon’s company. 

Such a food cart has no place being here, in this part of the town, on this boulevard specifically. That's why it's slightly hidden, snug to the wall in a tight alley. It’s either that it’s still too early, or the fish cakes are especially good that they eat too much. Sip too much broth.

They have stilted conversations in the young morning air, mouths full, infusing with the vapours from the pots. It’s casual. Nice.

He's going to have a food baby, Sehun realizes belatedly, often, after they pay, and that won't look too good in his photos, since the industry sees food babies as 'unrealistic'. At least if he didn’t have to pose practically naked. But that’s not the case. He hasn’t been promoted to real clothes yet.

He pouts. Baekhyeon laughs, and pats his tummy. “Since I’m partly at fault here, I’ll talk to the necessary people to take you to the shoot later in the day.” 

Baekhyeon gives his tummy a few more rubs. He coos, straightens his tie, and darts to his office.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a knock on the door only a few seconds after Sehun stepped inside. He hears it as he’s just taking his headphones out, and opens the door.

Baekhyeon is here, hands on his knees. “Been calling you all the way here,” he says, heaving. “Just how loud do you listen to music?”

Sehun is stunned, but he recovers quickly. “I was listening to a textbook.”

Baekhyeon straightens. “Oh,” he says, and grins, broad. His cheeks are red, and they round under the pressure of his grin. “Good boy.”

Sehun snickers, rolling his eyes, and gestures for Baekhyeon to come in.

And he doesn’t know now, Sehun can’t foresee that, but it’s this moment, this very moment when Baekhyeon steps in, toeing off his shoes, that he catches meaning for Sehun. Passes the threshold of his home, passes the threshold of his chest, and settles somewhere between his innards, and implants roots. Sehun doesn’t know that yet, not now.

He would inquire if anything is the matter – what brought Baekhyeon here, but he doesn’t. He welcomes him in as though it’s not the first time.

“Just wanted to hang out,” speaks Baekhyeon, blazer already off, as he fetches himself some water.

That they can do. They can weave conversations between snacking and between homework breaks. Prostrate over one another.

Sehun gets used to this fast – to Baekhyeon’s company while each of them are doing their own thing, a presence that is obtrusive as much as it is calmative.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s disquieting, still, when Sehun meets Taeyeon.

She’s hot. Kind. Funny. It’s all proven within the two sentences she has spoken.

Sehun knows enough now to be able to tell that Taeyeon is the embodiment of Baekhyeon’s type. Petite. Big smile and big laughter.  

Black hair. Long. That’s a constant. The long, black hair.

The first time he’s laid eyes on Baekhyeon, he had a woman in his embrace. By now, he’s seen many women in his embrace. They just flock around Baekhyeon, it seems, even at cafes when he’s with Sehun, and randomly on the streets, and while Sehun hasn’t seen him charm another one into his bed, he’s sure it kept happening. There’s something about Baekhyeon that attracts women to him. Might be the fact that while he’s forward, he’s extremely polite, and extremely sensible. It’s a combination that inspires trust in women.

But this woman _means_ something. This one is different.

Sehun doesn’t say anything. There are the other older models, and some designers who talk to her, make her laugh a little. She’s overawing. The dude besides him is just about drooling.

“I’m done, I’m done,” comes Baekhyeon chanting then. He breaks into the group, grinning. He pushes up his glasses, sliding an arm around Taeyeon’s waist. The distance between them doesn’t lessen. “Forgive me for making you wait,” he tells her sweetly.

It sounds dull though, derisive even. But he’s smiling. A jumbo so ensnared that makes it sealed, unquestionable.

Taeyeon pushes softly at him in retaliation. Baekhyeon gives the head designer the folder he’s been holding, accented with a brief salute, before he is greeting everyone goodbye for the day and leaving with her.

 

 

 

 

 

They learn how to cook together, triggered by a craving and perpetuated by ambition. They cannot be _that_ incompetent at kitchen matters.

It’s gyeranjjim, a dish they both like. Doesn’t seem too hard to make, and doesn’t require many ingredients.

Sehun feels like it would hurt his very soul to have one of these pretentious button downs of Baekhyeon’s getting stained while they cook. He doesn’t have an apron around, so he picks up a long sleeved shirt from his hamper and ties it around Baekhyeon under his pits. He protests, and a minute later he splatters kimchi juice on himself. He gasps, peers at Sehun. “I owe you my life now.”

Sehun rolls his eyes and asks him to go back to guarding the pot.

It’s salty, and it doesn’t have much a flavour beside that. The texture is off too. Not fluffy enough.

But they’re hungry already, and they were craving it, and it doesn’t taste _bad_ , just not spectacular. Baekhyeon dips his spoon into the stone pot for kittenish mouthfuls, blowing on the soup at each sip. Sehun does the same, trying to not burn himself. The kimchi is a bit too spicy and a bit too fermented. At least they nailed the rice.

Sehun didn’t watch TV before moving here and finding the tiny little shit stuffed and dusty in a drawer. He has cable too because he is petty, since it apparently costs a lot to cut it off, and he is too stingy to do that. So he watches now, from time to time. Knows a show or two, a news or two. He turns it on whilst they are munching. Both of them at a small table looking at a small TV.

Later, when they’re splayed on the floor, being lazy, Baekhyeon comes closer and pokes at his tummy. “You big baby can eat anything without it showing in the end,” he says, envious.

He keeps prodding around, Sehun is _very_ ticklish on the sides of his stomach, and Baekhyeon just found out this information. Sehun is doomed. Baekhyeon’s fingers are thin and dexterous, and Sehun is writhing in agony and laughing in seconds, with Baekhyeon on top of him tickling him into his grave.

“Hyeong! Hyeong!” He can’t fight him, for some reason, nor pull away. He takes it, allows himself to laugh until he chokes on it, vibrates with mirth. Baekhyeon relents then, tired himself, chooses to poke his feet into Sehun’s thighs. Sehun complains that his socks stink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s easy to forget that Baekhyeon is married. There is nothing to give it away, to keep it obvious. He never mentions her.

There is an ample miscellany of rings on Baekhyeon’s fingers. Always. Slim, all of them, bands that don’t go beyond a few millimetres in thickness. But many. Sehun counts them, when he needs to distract himself, five on one, three on the other, only one on this thumb. He fiddles with them, occasionally, when he’s either bored or fretful.

So Sehun doesn’t really notice that among the metals, all the ornaments Baekhyeon is wearing, there is the proof of commitment. There is the proof of Baekhyeon being taken, in love, in a point in his life so distant from where Sehun is right now. There is nothing that makes it stand out. The wedding band is just as golden as the rest of the others. They will all be in a tiny pile on the edge of his desk before he begins sketching.

Sehun wonders if Baekhyeon forgets it too. Or wishes to forget it.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is on a bench near the campus, outside, under a tree, studying, when Baekhyeon is suddenly sitting next to him. It’s almost like one of all the coincidences, except Sehun is very often here, on this very bench. And Baekhyeon knows about it.

He’s coming with praise and a skinny photobook. He slaps both to Sehun’s chest.

Sehun peers at the pictures. They made his junk bigger and heightened his cheekbones. His musculature is not that defined, but that seems to be a trick of contrast. Otherwise, it’s just him. Sehun leafs through the rest of it quickly before he tucks it into one of his textbooks.

“You look good?” Baekhyeon flatly poises the question.

“I look good,” agrees Sehun.

Baekhyeon nods. He has a coffee in his hand, an iced Americano, and he quietly sips it, next to Sehun, in the lazy noon. It’s not so far from the company, this place, and it’s lunch break. Sehun has a class after this. He has a lot to memorize for one of them. It’s a professor of a crocodilian character, sullen and mean and Sehun doesn’t remember ever learning something from him other than how to be a scumbag. But this course is worth a lot of his final grade. Sehun soldiers on.

At some point, Baekhyeon is unbuttoning his blazer and taking off his shoes to curl on the bench. Sehun turns a page, and Baekhyeon dips into a shallow slumber. A few pages later, Baekhyeon’s head falls on him, cheek on his shoulder, asleep. Sehun doesn’t move. He’s good now at being still.

He lets Baekhyeon sleep on him as he studies, then pokes him awake about an hour later.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a hickey on Baekhyeon’s neck. It only peeks out when he moves his head, and it slips out from under his collar. The one Sehun saw two days ago has just faded, and this is a fresh one, seeded by another mouth.

“Hyeong,” says Sehun. “Why do you cheat on her?”

He says it low, hushed, tucked into a whisper. For what it means, and because they are in the library on Sehun’s campus. It shouldn’t be so full at the start of the summer break, but it is, and Sehun adjust his voice to be no louder than the rustle of paper. He nearly doubts Baekhyeon heard, but then he closes the book in front of himself. Advanced Genetics.

“I’m not.” He’s looking at the glossy cover, rubbing the pads of his fingers over it. “We live together, but we’re not…” He doesn’t seem to be at loss of words, but at loss of thoughts, overlapping, knotting narratives. Sehun leans forward, to hear him better, and Baekhyeon does too. His chair creaks. “I never believed love was eternal or anything, but now it fizzled out, and we slowly and peacefully demoted each other to friends.” The small space between them saturates with the rasps of his breaths. “We’re friends, not lovers.”

He pulls back, simpers, tacit, as he should in a library. “I’m not cheating, Sehun-ah.”

Baekhyeon could be in jail, if this was only a few years ago. But it’s not. This is happening today, confessed on an evening they decided to hang out among books, long after the adultery law has been lifted.

Even without the binds of illegality, what he’s doing – seeking pleasure, continuously - is risqué, exhilarating. Sehun understands that. But he also thinks that Baekhyeon is perhaps _too_ into having a bruised neck. A chain of welts around the skin, like the stain of an attempt at harm rather than at pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

A summer spent with Baekhyeon had an entirely different type of warmth, and entirely different type of sunniness.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon doesn’t even ask him if he wants to go out. Doesn’t even invite him. He just hauls him there, semi-aimless and lively, disguised as a promenade, while holding onto his elbow.

He came to pick up Sehun from his house. The opening ceremony of the new semester was today, but of course Sehun didn’t go. All he did today was faceplant in his pillow and think about the hardships that are to come and batter him into a pulp. Then Baekhyeon barged in and demanded him to get dressed.

Then they arrive at the club too early maybe - there’s still a few hours until midnight, and they get in just with a nod from Baekhyeon to the bouncer. And there it is, that same sight, all the darkness, and the cumulative sweat seeming to glow on his face. It’s all reminiscent. This is how he’s seen Baekhyeon for the first time. All the mess, skin, loudness, stinky breaths.

Sehun’s never really gotten into this. Into going out at night, the drinking and the dancing and socializing. He strung along with some colleagues, dragged maybe, only beguiled by the fact that it meant not spending the end of the week alone, no homework and no boring night shows. And he got to touch a body or two.

Baekhyeon is hell-bent into teaching him how to enjoy it though. He puts a small drink in his hand, makes him taste something he’s never tasted before. Sweet but prickly and very purple and Sehun already wants three more of these. Baekhyeon laughs, fully, hard enough to be heard over the music, then he gets him more, gets himself some too, and they down them together. Baekhyeon tells him until the ‘magical’ moment happens, when he slips from sobriety into a diluted inebriation, and suddenly the shrill music sounds too good not to move along to. Suddenly being still feels strange. Suddenly, everything is kind of funny and his body is buzzing and his mind adrift. And he craves to be among the moving people, in the centre of the darkness, his sight only teased by the flashing strobes. A few more sips of the purple thing and the magic happens.

“Hyeong,” he wails, because his tongue can’t shape around more articulate noises.

Baekhyeon laughs, again, or he never even stopped laughing in the first place, and is more than happy to walk him to the dance floor and be silly with him.

Then, it was winter, when he saw Baekhyeon a bit drunk, loose like this. Now it’s almost a year later, autumn, and Sehun knows him. He’s no longer just a measly stranger. Though there is something so off about him as the night progresses, passes into a new day, only caught in the moving lights, as though now he’s a stranger to himself. Sehun blinks it all away, puts it on the account of his drunkenness.

It ends with Baekhyeon hailing him a taxi. He stays with Sehun until the car comes, yawning repeatedly, nose scrunching, and slow, but luminous blinks. He recounts the worst pickup lines he’s used tonight. Sehun might puke from laughter. Or the lameness. He’s still laughing when Baekhyeon bids him goodbye, right before sliding some money for the fare in his back pocket and giving it a pat. “Since I dragged you here. Take care!”

Afterwards, Sehun enjoys all the days, all the nights, all the time he spends with Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

They still play basketball. Or something. There are barely any rules. Just dribbling the ball, dodging, fighting, and throwing it at the basket. Surprisingly, Baekhyeon is much better than him. They did this often enough, and still Sehun has a long way to catch up with Baekhyeon’s agility. His height isn’t helping at all.

But Baekhyeon is mad tonight. Aggressive. It’s subtle. As everything. As always. Sehun doesn’t notice at first, not until Baekhyeon scores a goal and doesn’t even rub it in his face, no nothing. And he keeps going on like that, doing all his might to take the ball from him, score goal after goal, furious and unfeeling.

It ends when Baekhyeon jumps too high, and lands wrong on his feet. He lets out a sharp yell, and falls to the ground, grabbing at his foot. Sehun is by him in a moment, taking his shoe off to check for any damage. He’s seen plenty of accidents of this sort at the gym, plenty of people falling off treadmills.

He urges Baekhyeon to move it a bit, to flex. His ankle. Nothing seems to be wrong. Still, Sehun makes him do a few more movements, wiggle it, before deciding that it’s okay, then he too falls next to Baekhyeon. They’re sweaty enough for the dirt on the ground to stick to their shirts, but it’s _cold_ , nice. The sky above is of a blue too light, a black too washy, and barren of any stars. There is a pane though, scratching at a cloud, making it bleed a white lisle.

“Anything happened?” Sehun asks when his breathing has evened out. Baekhyeon has been still, quiescent all this while.

“No, but it will happen.”

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a start to _this_ , to Sehun’s fixation, stretched and lazy, as the day drains into a young evening.

Baekhyeon often insists he studies. Not nagging, but stares, edgeless and black as he wills Sehun to open his textbooks and scribble down some notes at least. He listens to Sehun whining though, encourages it, whines too because he has some emails to reply to, read some reports, do one of those uncanny sketches of his. They whine together. This sync of misery is terribly comfortable.

For now, Sehun has an English exam to study for. Sehun needs to know English. A lot of it. Speaking and writing and listening. It is really hard for him to comprehend in. The binding, the grammar too intricate, too unreasonable, too abundant. He cannot let go of the pattern of his native tongue. The L’s and R’s mix together in his head too, K and G and what’s up with this ‘th’ thing. Sehun’s whine just got promoted to a groan. It rips painfully through his chest.

Sehun hears a little sigh from his side, followed by Baekhyeon’s head popping into his field of vision, eyes scanning over the sheets in front of Sehun. “I’ll save you,” he says, cheeky.

He does save Sehun, because, it turns out, Baekhyeon knows English. Knows it so well. He pronounces it with an intonation that Sehun could never achieve, and concocts sentences with a syntax that Sehun would never wrap his head around. He explains it to Sehun, gives him examples, when he’s stuck again, when he’s lost again. Sehun whines and Baekhyeon puts his pencil down and is back to his rescue.

He has a soft voice. The lilt of him speaking in a foreign language especially dampens his usual tone. Sehun repeats after him, tired, sleepy until he’s looked over all the material he needed. He’s so done with everything that he drops and nestles his face into Baekhyeon’s neck. Baekhyeon laughs, adjusts, but doesn’t push him away.

Sehun blearily watches him scribbling something on his sketchbook. Thick paper and a fountain pen with a fat tip. Ink keeps absorbing into the paper, making sharp spikes like ice shards around the lines. Sehun becomes so comfortable watching this procession, watch ink sinking into paper, as Baekhyeon hums quietly. It’s choppy, an interpretation of a song that was in the background at the shoot this afternoon. He can’t quite hum along to minimal techno music, but he tries, starts over, strings a melody into his breathing. Sehun is close enough to feel the frangible vibration of his neck.

It’s his favourite place to be now. There are bones and skin and the warmth, and a scent that lures him, that he cannot get enough of. He nuzzles once more under Baekhyeon’s jaw, and he knows he won’t find this sort of comfort, of peace anywhere else. Sehun doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

 

 

 

 

 

“So I’m officially divorced starting today,” Baekhyeon greets him, putting two bottles of champagne in front of them on the red plastic table. It wobbles, then wobbles some more when Baekhyeon takes a seat, knocks his foot on Sehun’s shin and his knee under the table. He grins.

It’s midday, late enough to take a lunch that could pass for a dinner. They’re at a pojangmacha near the campus of Sehun’s uni and it stinks of fish, delicious fish, and spice, and Baekhyeon is way too radiant for this place.

From his inner pocket, Baekhyeon procures a piece of paper, creased, and slaps it on the table among the bowls of food and still-empty soju glasses.

“Here, you see? Done! Over!”

Sehun reds a few lines of the writing. Then his eyes slide to the signatures at the bottom. Baekhyeon used the same one he uses to sign his art with to terminate his marriage.

Oh, so this is what-

“I do see. Congratulations, hyeong. Welcome back to the dark side of the singles.” Sehun is happy for him, if Baekhyeon is happy for himself. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t find all this excitement a bit off, but Baekhyeon puts it as though it’s best thing to ever happen to him and Sehun can do nothing but believe him.

Their pseudo party begins by bribing the ajumma with a bit of the champagne and a hefty consummation just so she will let them have outside-brought items in her tent. Then they’re picking at some anju that don’t really go with the champagne that they are sipping from soju glasses. It doesn’t really go with the glasses either.

Sehun’s had a horrendous day so far - the too many classes and too much studying and too much running around. His thoughts swim with the fact that he has to do this all over again tomorrow. And now everything is being forgotten sip by sip, until Sehun isn’t upset anymore, but in an eerie mood of being simultaneously hyper and too tired to express all the excitement. He’s drinking some nice champagne as he quarrels over jeon pieces with Baekhyeon, and now they’re both defrosted and hazy and Sehun has many things he’s curious about and Baekhyeon just _talks_.

“So, like, why?” Sehun asks, because he can’t think of a question bigger than this.

“Why,” parrots Baekhyeon to himself. Sehun watches a droplet of champagne slide from the glass and down his wrist until it makes a tiny wet blotch on his cuff. Baekhyeon winces. “I don’t remember the last time I loved her,” he says. “Or a time that I loved her at all? Love as in love, not infatuation.” As though this why, thinking of this main reason never crossed his mind. “Yeah, that’s why. Should’ve thought of that then maybe? Should’ve at least taken one of those lame tests on the internet to check if I was really in love with her. Divorces are expensive.” He wrinkles his nose, both at what he’s saying, and at the fact that the champagne keeps spilling, keeps staining his shirt. Sehun knows he feels worse about the shirt. “But we did promise to make each other successful enough that such expense would be nothing. That at least we followed through with.”

Sehun nods, then nods some more, understanding. There is a sigh coming from beside them, and Sehun discovers that it comes from a stressed high school student, notebooks all over the tiny table and a few plates of food, and she is staring kind of wistfully at the champagne. Sehun pours her a glass too, wordlessly. She offers a bow and goes back to her reading, a notch more alive.

“You’re her prince now,” Baekhyeon says when Sehun has his focus back on him. Sehun scoffs, and since he has the bottle in hand, he refills Baekhyeon’s glass. Not too full so he doesn’t spill anymore.

“Now I’m your prince too.”

Baekhyeon laughs. It doesn’t attune with anything in this milieu, but it stands out, spirited and tuneful.

“How did you even end up marrying her?” Sehun inquires when Baekhyeon’s crescent eyes become less crescent. It feels off to interrupt his laughter.

He can’t imagine that at all. Baekhyeon got married when he was around Sehun’s age. Out of all the little relationships and hook-ups and interests, sexual or romantic, that went somewhere, caught a bit of weight, and the others, that went nowhere, he can’t imagine having any of those ending up in marriage. At all.

“You’ve seen her,” Baekhyeon starts with, in the same faintly perplexed timbre. “As a teenager she wasn’t any less charming than she is now.”

She’s charming as hell, indeed. Sehun can’t pinpoint what it was about her that made is so he couldn’t take his eyes off her, and maybe, this puzzlement is exactly what constitutes the appeal.

“One moment she was the new girl in class, and the next I was so enamoured with her that I turned stupid. And she was too. And then that dumbness carried on too much and then—“ He stops. The glaze of inebriation is starting to thicken over his eyes, turning them auroral and murky. “Hell if I know.” He empties the glass in one gulp, throwing his head back. He’s grinning as he puts it down.

“She’s an amazing woman, but she’s better off not being mine anymore. “

At twenty Baekhyeon got married, at twenty-three Baekhyeon got divorced, and here he is now, in front of Sehun, his feet tangled with Sehun’s under the table, giggly and happy and not regretting a single thing.

“I’m so not getting married, hyeong,” is what Sehun concludes by the end of the night – because yes, it’s just bled into night now, and Baekhyeon laughs at him as he takes him home and tucks them both in for a short nap to rinse out the drunkenness.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon’s home is just nice. Perhaps even banal. Not what he’s expected given the way Baekhyeon cares for himself. Nothing garish, nothing shiny, nothing opulent.

A normal, cosy home. Tasteful. Everything is thinned with white, subdued, and it’s bright, clean, and there is an odd serenity enveloping Sehun the further he goes in. He senses a phantom emptiness to it, however, patches of vanishment, not seen, not tangible, just present through the gaps.

Sehun tries to look for things that would denote a feminine touch, and finds nothing, but then there’s nothing suggesting that Baekhyeon’s been living alone for a while either.

“I felt bad, you know, that we only ever went to your place,” speaks Baekhyeon. A clink of a cup settling on the counter followed by a puff of mirth.

“I don’t,” Sehun says, taking the cup away when Baekhyeon finishes stirring the instant coffee in it. He sips it without blowing on it because Baekhyeon is always too impatient to let the water warm properly.

“Anyway, you’ll be coming over very often from now on.”

They’re moving back into the living room. Sehun does another once over before he slings himself onto the sofa. It looked plush. It _is_ plush. Also, long enough that no part of him is left out. Baekhyeon chuckles, putting his own cup down on the coffee table. Undissolved powder floats at the top, and there’s no steam coming out of it. Sehun rolls his eyes, but then Baekhyeon is patting at his legs and making space for himself too, to stretch out on the opposite side. They fit just right.

“At your place, when I look up, sometimes, I get to see the night sky instead of a ceiling.”

“There is also a corner that leaks when it’s raining,” Sehun reminds. He slurps the last of his drink, careful not to choke in this position. He’s too comfortable to get up. He will in a bit.

“You _should_ get that fixed.” Baekhyeon’s toe pokes at his thigh.

Sehun sighs, and finally gets up. He goes after his backpack, left next to his shoes in the foyer, and takes out a pen to make a small mark on his hand. He will remember to call the landlord about this issue. Baekhyeon is pleased.

Sehun sighs once more and begins spreading out his books and notebooks on the coffee table. He asks to use Baekhyeon’s laptop. The password is ‘Sehun’.

Sehun raises an eyebrow at that.

“I kinda bought it the day I met you, didn't want to forget the name,” Baekhyeon shrugs.

After a while, Baekhyeon descends next to him on the floor. He’s changed and clipped back his hair. Hands completely bare. Sehun lets him look through his meagre pencil case – half of the pens are not even working - and test them out on his sketchbook. Sehun allows himself a little break as he does this, slowly resting his head on Baekhyeon’s shoulder. It’s more comfortable now. Like it’s allowed. Like he is not overstepping any boundaries.

He’s working on the closing paragraph of his essay rewording, rewording, shifting. Body tight. He hasn’t noticed Baekhyeon disappearing from his side until he’s back and putting a stack of clothes on the corner of the table. Sehun types the last two words, and stares at it.

“They won’t fit you, but at least you won’t be naked,” says Baekhyeon, and then ushers him to shower afterwards. He has a new shower ball and a new toothbrush and a bunch of towels for him. “I’ll drive you to uni in the morning,” Baekhyeon assures him before he’s out of the bathroom to let him do his thing.

Sehun hesitates undressing for a second. He feels treated too well. Not for the first time.

He bites his lip, and takes off his clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun overwinters by sleeping, eating, sleeping, sashaying around in panties in front of cameras, being with Baekhyeon.

He didn’t think it could be someone to change his life, not like this, not this much. It should’ve been something else. A job, a home, love, money, luck.  Something bigger than a person who barely reaches past Sehun’s shoulder. Not someone with a cobwebby scarf in a furore around his neck to drag him out of his monastic ways by the hand, by the collar, with naught but a smile, and not stopping until he’s down in the understory of Seoul, amid its guts, seeing all there is to see, tasting all there is to taste. Sehun forgets what before was like, the quotidian tedium, all the spilled hours, gone, and not missed.

The restaurants, the concerts, the art exhibitions. Playing in snow, something Sehun hasn’t done in a while, with Baekhyeon, on Christmas Eve, their tummies full of strawberry cream shortcake, finding the patch of thick, untouched snow in the park that he tugs Sehun into, fights with him, covers him in snow until they’re freezing, shivering, and not feeling a damn thing beside joy.

Hot chocolate and the fireworks of the New Year. The party at 76MM. Trying ice skating, failing, nearly breaking a leg. Baekhyeon randomly sliding hand warmers down Sehun’s shirt. Attempting to decorate Sehun’s place by netting it with string lights. Jongin, more underwear, more pictures.

Baekhyeon again, sliding a tube of hand cream out of his pocket and slathering it all over Sehun’s hands while scolding him for always forgetting his gloves. Baekhyeon making a race of who can shovel the fastest the snow off Sehun’s rooftop, winning, losing. Buying shitty presents for one another. Snowball fights. Hair dye. Baekhyeon painting, not in a sketchbook, but on a canvas, a blanket over his shoulders and his legs folded under himself as he scattered tubes of paint on Sehun’s floor. Cinema trips.

When the first spring flowers appear, Sehun looks back. It’s a cluster, so dense, of events that make it seem as though Sehun has lived in these three months more than he’s lived in any three months of this life. From this winter Sehun remembers just Baekhyeon. Not him as the centre, but the catalyst, the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

On Valentine’s Day they are both at home, Sehun’s, on the floor, eating chimaek because why not, and Baekhyeon is drinking too much because this is a brand he hasn’t tasted before and it’s _bomb_. Sehun still prefers chicol.

“What a great date with my best friend,” says Baekhyeon, pushing his foot into Sehun’s lap and wiggling his toes. Sehun doesn’t even ask, just obediently takes off Baekhyeon’s sock.

Sehun tries to hold in a burp. “Are we best friends?” He fails. He takes the other sock off.

Baekhyeon pokes at him with a dirty finger, before he picks around in the box until he gets a wing, leaving the last drumstick to Sehun. He has a hard time around chewing around the little bones, whilst Baekhyeon has no qualms about getting grease all over his face in his quest for all the meat. “What else,” he says noncommittal, but he’s grinning a corn-flaked grin. He reaches over to take Sehun’s hand, linking their pinkies together. “Best friends forever!” he hollers in English, with fried chicken accent, mouth full, and then wags his thumb in invitation. Sehun presses his thumb to it, sealing the contract. “I’m supposed to cut off your pinky if you stop being best friends with me now,” he says, severe and low. Drunk Baekhyeon. Cute Baekhyeon.

Sehun giggles. There’s beer in his stomach tickling him.

From now on, Sehun officially has a best friend.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s barely a few weeks into the new semester, into the new year, and Sehun is _dying_. He even has the sensation that he smells of rotting flesh.

“Were your classes easier?” asks Sehun, tired beyond reason.

Baekhyeon is in the midst of arranging a big tissue over his shirt. He checks to see if it’s tucked securely into his collar. “My classes,” he says in an oddly stilted tone. He picks up his chopsticks and grabs the whole bundle of cucumbers from his bowl of jjolmyeon and dumps them with a grimace into Sehun’s. He could’ve ordered the noodles without them, but he’s aware that Sehun likes the extra cucumber. It’s not really a food for this time of the year, but still fitting, somehow.

“I never went.”

Sehun halts on his way to pour some water. “What.” He puts the carafe back down. “For real?”

The slimy sound of noodles mixing. Baekhyeon smiles. “For real.”

“Hyeong…”

A man like Baekhyeon, with his job, his ability, doesn’t have higher education. In a time where one is basically nothing without it.

The smile blossoms into a chuckle. “High school was enough for me. I didn’t want to study things anymore, I wanted to _do_ things.”

His noodles are all a homogenous red now. He takes the carafe from Sehun’s hand and pours water into the two metal cups.

“You’ve got nothing to learn from me on this one,” he says, eyes narrowing at Sehun in warning. “I got lucky. _Really_ lucky.”

Sehun doubts it’s all on the account of luck. Baekhyeon doesn’t hold the camera himself, doesn’t paint the colours himself, doesn’t make the clothes himself. But he thinks of all the aspects of portraying these.  Not the framing, not the composition, but the concept, the whole plot and vibe. And the way he does it really _fucking_ sells. That’s more skill than luck, surely.

Still, Sehun’s mind goes to how much sleep he has to give up in order to study tonight – all of it - and he wants to just throw it all out the window and let his life in the hands of fate too. He never had anything against being a cashier at a tiny convenience store. Or a waiter. Or anything else that doesn’t require him to be smart and have three hundred books crammed inside his head.

Baekhyeon sighs, on his behalf it appears, and reaches across the table to grab his bowl. He has two chopsticks in each hand, slotted between fingers, as he mixes Sehun’s noodles fast and neat. He didn’t make a mess of sauce everywhere as Sehun would have. He pushes it back towards Sehun, the half egg intact and clean on top.

“You’re not giving up,” Baekhyeon says. It doesn’t even sound like an encouragement, but like a truth that has no chance of budging.

Sehun sighs. “I’m not giving up.”

He picks up his chopsticks and digs in and he’s really not giving up. Baekhyeon makes a proud face.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon is some off-rosarian. Sehun is only aware of this detail after the hints build up, after he comes to expect a touch of a rose on him.

It fits him. His skin, his smile, his tone. An earring once, a sculpted rose, small, of a colour so muted it was nearly unseen on the shell. Another one on his shirt. His cufflinks. Some embroidered on the handkerchief folded carefully in his pocket. A tea, a cologne. Still with a masculine sting, but the undertone is saccharine and algid, of petal.

It’s peculiar, Sehun deems. It doesn’t fit with the scenery. Roses in a city, roses through the organised rubble. Roses on Baekhyeon.

He seems to be attracted only to the symbol of it, however. Representations, but not the actual flowers.

So for his birthday, Sehun buys Baekhyeon roses. White, yellow, pink, young ones.

“Weird,” he breathes into the arrangement. “Never received flowers before.”

He’s still in loungewear. Worn, discoloured shorts and a tee scuffed around the neck. He takes another inhale of the flowers before he looks up, eyes alight. “There has to be a perfume that smells exactly like this,” he says, faint, as though he’s more speaking to himself. “Thank you, Sehunnie.”

“Happy birthday, hyeong,” smiles Sehun.

Baekhyeon keeps them around for a while, sniffing them occasionally. He dips one finger in the centre of an opened coral rose, and heedlessly plays with it like that for the rest of the night. Sehun was expecting him to put them in water at once, but no, Baekhyeon gently toys with them before he takes off the decorative netting surrounding them and hangs them upside down by a string on a nail on the wall. That nail once held a framed picture of him and Taeyeon. It’s a place where the sun never reaches.

“They dry best like this,” Baekhyeon murmurs. “And they will pretty much remain like this forever.”

Sehun wrinkles his nose. “Cheesy.”

Baekhyeon pokes his tongue out at him.

 

 

 

 

 

A guy is hitting on Baekhyeon. Sehun notices it straight away.

He’s using the easiest technique, one he’s probably tried on everyone else tonight, a little frayed already, a little desperate, for he will not be going home alone tonight it seems. No way Baekhyeon doesn’t see through the cheap tactics. The dude is already leaning in, lowering his voice. The archetypal bullshit.

And still, Baekhyeon plays along. Cold, empty, weightless, even as he stares through his lashes up at the guy, but he is flirting back.

He does nothing more. Until the guy lays a hand on him. Baekhyeon didn’t. Did nothing to close in.

Sehun is at the bar, reading a course on his phone, for, curiously, it’s easier to concentrate here, amid all this chaos and the smell of debauchery that is so dense it chokes him like smoke. He’s close enough, and attentive enough, to catch the moment Baekhyeon turns hostile. It’s subtle. A drunken eye will never catch it. But Sehun does. Baekhyeon really has no interest whatsoever in the guy.

Truthfully, he isn’t the biggest charmer. His pursuit is lacking severely. And he’s wearing this look, one that Sehun sees often, of curious, lost, but terribly keen enchantment. Baekhyeon has this effect on people. This guy is merely an astray, stuttering victim.

Sehun licks some sugar off the rim of his glass of…something. He doesn’t know what it is. Baekhyeon ordered it. “You broke his heart,” Sehun says when Baekhyeon comes back to him and picks up a slice of apple from the little plate of appetizers. Sehun bookmarks where he left off. Not that he actually learned anything this time.

“I think it was just his dick on the table to be broken,” singsongs Baekhyeon. Gleeful. Not vulgar, not disdainful. But also flat. Phony.

Sehun doesn’t think about it. About Baekhyeon and what he thinks of men.

Sehun whines, finishes his drink. Looks pleadingly at Baekhyeon until he gives in and grabs Sehun’s hand to take him dancing.

 

 

 

 

 

“Change him. That colour doesn’t go well with his skin,” Baekhyeon speaks.

The stylist doesn’t question it – there’s a weight to Baekhyeon’s voice when he talks about such things that cannot be overpassed – and she scrambles out of the dressing room to find something else. It’s just them two now - Baekhyeon, fully dressed in a pinstripe suit, and Sehun, only donning a pair of briefs that _don’t go well with his skin_.

Baekhyeon’s glasses slide a bit down his nose, and he stares over the lenses. He hums. “Your body really is something else, Sehunnie.”

Sehun’s skin burns, suddenly. The very peaks of his cheeks warm up. There is something in Baekhyeon’s eyes that is different, as he looks him up and down, lingers, studies. As though it’s the first time he sees Sehun disrobed, the person, the friend, and not Sehun the model, the medium for his work.

He’s received plenty of commentary before on his physique, but it didn’t have this strange effect on him.

“Good thing you got your hands on me then,” Sehun responds, deferred.

Baekhyeon blinks – that’s all it takes for the look to be back to his professionalism – and he peers at Sehun, nodding. “I’m never letting go of you.” Wink, smirk, the usual garnish for sappy promises.

The blush enhances, Sehun feels, accompanied by a faltering in his chest. Before Baekhyeon notices it, though, the stylist is back, and Baekhyeon approves the new pair before he leaves.

Sehun refuses to look at himself in the mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

There is something terrifically beautiful when Baekhyeon’s fingers are dirty. Be it with graphite, smudged marker, pen - especially when he still has all the rings on, and the stains curdle around the glimmer of the bands. The accumulated darkness makes them stand out, thrive among the filth.

He can twirl pencils too. A coordinated, steadfast twirling, jumping from finger to finger smoothly, rapidly, while his stare is blank down at the paper. The wood hitting on metal makes a dull, foul sound. A little song to accompany his moments of mulling, assessing, then a sigh, as he goes back to etching. He keeps a small cutter in his breast pocket, framed by the silken handkerchief folded into it, that he occasionally takes out to sharpen his pencil. He has a fashion of holding that blade that gives the illusion that he is caressing the tip of the pencil with it as he skins it, shapes it into a little spear.

When Sehun lifts his gaze from his textbooks, he often sees this. Sees Baekhyeon.

He’s never noticed such things before. Sehun never cared about beautiful things before. There wasn’t anything beautiful about the shadow pooling into the dip between two bones, nothing about the plication of fabric around a neck, nothing about the shine of metal competing with the shine of skin.

Sehun is still a slob, still doesn’t know more colour names, isn’t any more knowledgeable about the workings of artistry, but his world, with Baekhyeon in it, is just a little livelier, a little more worth having his eyes open for.

 

 

 

 

 

Some nights Baekhyeon is out by himself, some other nights, he’s with Jongdae, the mouthy, saucy manager from the finance department that he always catfights with. But he never stays out late, so Baekhyeon is at last alone.

It’s that when Sehun’s phone lights up with a string of texts and wakes him up. Sehun doesn’t open his eyes, but keeps on listening to the sporadic vibration of the phone for a while, before he reaches over to take it. A selca first. He’s still dressed, strewn into bed, for all the stink of the night to sink into the sheets. Then he’s telling Sehun about his cravings, something pretty he’s seen, a shitty errand he has to run, how he really, really wants a pet – preferably a cat - how he doesn’t like that he can hear all his wristwatches ticking from their drawer. Then what happened, what sort of club it was, what sort of music, what he’s drunk this time, _you have to try this!!_

Sehun listens to all of that, bleary, eyes burning from the light of the screen in the dark of the night. He doesn’t reply.

After this, each time, in the morning, Baekhyeon gets him breakfast, gets breakfast for them both as an apology. The apology breakfasts are always a splurge. Sehun isn’t complaining – he never is, about being in Baekhyeon’s company _and_ eating something good, but “You don’t _have_ to do this,” Sehun says. Because Baekhyeon woke up early for him, for this, and rushed through unforgiving traffic to the other side of the city to make it just before Sehun’s uni workshop starts. Baekhyeon’s puppy eyes don’t fit with the cimmerian bags underneath. The clash is perturbing.

Baekhyeon promptly waves him off. His bracelets chime. “Of course I do. I have to be in your good graces, since drunkenly texting my ex is no fun because she either ignores me, or roasts the fuck out of me.” Pause, pleading wide eyes at Sehun. “So, I just have you.”

Baekhyeon’s jovial tone keeps ringing in Sehun’s ears. He takes a greedy gulp of his coffee. “Poor me. I’m doomed with you.”

Baekhyeon pouts, then kicks him, then smiles, because Sehun is too.

 

 

 

There are periods of time when they do nothing but vegetate over one another, semi-tangled and stretched out, Baekhyeon’s hands around him, over him, thrown, curled. Baekhyeon always needs something to fiddle with, needs his hands to be doing something, and that’s Sehun now.

It’s the most mindless of touches, but also the most pleasant. Sehun’s head on Baekhyeon’s stomach, laying on his side, and resting his textbook on Baekhyeon’s thighs. Sehun recites aloud from it, forlorn and useless, while Baekhyeon digs the fingers of one hand into his back, scrolling through pictures on his tablet with the other.

It’s this extra drop of mutual comfort that makes them able to pull through, keep on going a little more.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun wants to undress Baekhyeon.

It’s a wish that hits out of the blue. Baekhyeon is dressed up, so high, and sitting across from him. It seems like a machine nearly, all the pieces, all the details mounted on Baekhyeon like that. He has a bowtie now, except it’s not tied, but left around his collar, the silken, lucent underside of it is visible. The fabric of his shirt is something rigid, that doesn’t crease, only moulding softly to the panes of his chest, allowing to dip under the cusp of his ribcage when he stretches, back arching and tummy sinking. That bowtie slipping over that fabric - Sehun has no idea how it would sound. But then there are the shoes – always tied with a bow - the socks, picked to match, even though Sehun can’t really tell, even when their colour is glaring.

All he knows is that it’s not discordant. Cufflinks, a bracelet, surely a watch, sometimes even a pocket watch, a belt, sometimes slim, sometimes embossed, painted. His sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Not _pushed_ actually, he doesn’t push them, he folds them, presses them flat and straight. It’s a habit of his. He’d be making fun of Sehun, spewing his spooky cusses at whatever it is that is bothering him, all the while measuring each crease of his sleeve so it reaches right past his elbow, until his forearm is bare, watch tightened on his wrist so it doesn’t slide, and he can bend over the table to make annotations on his papers comfortably. It’s a habit. It happened at least thrice. It is happening again, in front of Sehun, right now, though they are in a café and not at the office.  

The pants are tight. They look like something not meant to stick to the skin like that, but they do, coat Baekhyeon’s leg with a smooth material. Sehun can see the shift of the muscles underneath occasionally, the tension of his thighs when he stands.

And Sehun cannot think of Baekhyeon naked, cannot think of skin at all. Even though he’s actually seen him disrobed down to his boxers, that’s not what he’s after. He’s after seeing him fully divested, unguarded, truthful.

Sehun wants, increasingly often, to undress Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a specific subspace Baekhyeon’s drunkenness occasionally drops into. So far, Sehun hasn’t discovered exactly what fragments need to align in order for this to result – the type of drink, his mood beforehand, the music he listened to, how successful the day’s been. It’s all in disarray, unpredictable.

Usually, he has an air to him, sober or not. In the manner he carries himself with, expresses himself. Not necessarily controlled, nor limited, but somewhat solemn. Baekhyeon’s personality does have touches of childishness, naiveté, budding and fresh. And this is what is left of him, when he’s like this, all the vividness and bounciness brought forward, concentrated, crystalline. It is like seeing tiny Baekhyeon, maybe 10 years old, grinning unabashedly and being loud and energetic, all in the body of a grown up man.

Sehun likes it when this happens. A lot. And right now, Baekhyeon is in this state.

It’s a late springtime night. Baekhyeon is drunk and shamelessly stealing flowers off the green sides of the road. He uses Sehun’s house key to cut them.

“Are you embarrassed of me,” he’s shouting after Sehun, shouting and pouting, and it’s all just rounded, bubbly bellows. “It’s okay, you can pretend you don’t know me,” more steps through the grass, pause, he breaks another stem of something. It doesn’t even have a flower on it. “So the police will find me alone and I’ll go with them, because I’m _such_ a bad boy.”

Sehun laughs, because he is drunk too, and Baekhyeon is hilarious. He still keeps walking. They’re kind of lost. Fuck knows how they got to that club, but when they got out, they didn’t recognize anything around. Sehun wouldn’t find it _entirely_ surprising if they built a whole new street in the span of 3 hours they were inside downing shots and shaking their asses. He has to keep walking to get them out of here.

“These flowers are really pretty. Don’t leave me! You’ll miss me if you lose me!”

Sehun stops. He’s woozy. He laughs again and looks back.

An overjoyed Baekhyeon holding a bundle of flowers, equipoising on one foot on the curb. Sehun can see him doddering in his dress shoes. “Catch me!” he says, meandering forward, wobbly, on the curb. Faster, clumsier. “Catch me, Sehun-ahhhhh,” he says, louder, right in time to collapse into Sehun with a huff, insouciant to a point it could only stem from utmost trust. Chests pressed together, arms twined. The flowers are squished between them. Detachedly, drunkenly, Sehun thinks this impact might have embedded a bit more of Baekhyeon into him. There is an ident, a passing, right where the warmth of Baekhyeon clings to him. “Ah, you’re great at catching,” he mumbles. He spits then, probably a mouthful of leaves, and wipes his lips on Sehun’s jacket. 

“What are you gonna do with me now?” He wiggles. Wiggles to get closer. Lean into Sehun properly, fit with him properly. “Take me to prison?”

“Duh,” says Sehun.

Baekhyeon peeks up at him. Bangs messy over his forehead and cheeks mushed with the flowers, so all Sehun sees are Baekhyeon’s small, beclouded eyes. His lids flutter.

“You also murdered these darlings.”

“I’m terrible.” He pulls away. A pout even poutier than the last one. It’s akin to one of the carnations he’s holding.

“You are.”

“I am,” he nods.

“Let’s go home.”

“Let’s go home.”

They hold hands till the doorstep, past the doorstep, then they let go.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun skips close to a week of class for this. He didn’t even leave a notice at uni for it.

It makes the days even more precious. Sehun enjoys everything more because he knows exactly what kind of monotony he’s missing - the hungover voice of Mr. Kim, and that bullshit calculus course, a bunch of guest lectures that he has no interest in, and _piles_ of homework.

Everything really is more beautiful when Sehun is working on pilfered time.

He’s been to Jeju once before, but he was too young, and he doesn’t remember anything anymore. Sehun pokes his nose out the car window and breathes in the vernal smell of the greenery mixed with the heaviness of salt. They’ve been travelling for a while, went away from the coast, and Sehun likes that no matter how deep into the land they go, it seems he can still hear the echo of the waves hitting the shore.

Jeju is breath-taking in early summer, yet Sehun catches only a few glimpses of the scenery with how busy the trip is. Jongin is the showpiece, not him, but that doesn’t mean Mina isn’t pushing his ass in all directions, that he doesn’t have to be everywhere. He’s rushed from place to place, robed, disrobed, makeup, hair, pools and waterfalls and gardens, planted among bushes and stones. He cracks silly jokes with Jongin in the downtime.

It’s three days’ worth of shoots and presentations and Baekhyeon is the busiest out of everyone. He’s the one in charge, the one directing everything. Dressed up every day, every night, stretched thin across half the island. Sehun only sees him occasionally lurking behind the camera, and then, deep into the night, in their room, too tired to talk, as they watch something on TV until they fall asleep.

It ends with a big show mixed with a party. Sehun wears a dozen different attires in the span of four hours and has just as many flutes of champagne. He receives compliments and offers and grins that get progressively gauzier, uglier, and more genuine. It’s cheery, fun, but Sehun is so happy when it starts dying down, the crowd thinning, thinning, until there aren’t more than a handful of people left in the hall.

He could leave too. Jongin already abandoned him, for he’s too much of a sleepy head. But he doesn’t. He stays behind, melted in a chair, chomping on the last pieces of fruit from a platter until Baekhyeon is done talking to whoever these people are. Investors, designers, artists. They’re quite old. Baekhyeon is wearing a mask of over-politeness that looks like cement over his face. It’s ready to crack.

Sehun scratches at his neck. He can’t wait to get out of these clothes. They have a fetor of staleness, of wood and dust and ghosts. They itch. When he looks up, he sees Baekhyeon walking towards him. He can barely put a foot in front of the other.

He yawns, big, eyes scrunching and jaw unhinging. He loses balance when he reaches Sehun, and hits into him. Sehun puts a palm on his waist.

“You stayed to carry me to our room?” he says, fast, before another yawn consumes his face.

Sehun is sleepy too, very much so. But. “I could do that. Want me to?”

“Would be nice,” he says, offhandedly, as though his own question was meaningless. He makes to pivot when Sehun gets up and kneels before him.

No matter how exhausted he is, Baekhyeon must be even more so. Because truly, all Sehun did was go from place to place, be still, and be pretty. Yet Baekhyeon had to do so much more. He has a body so tiny it’s amazing it even withstood so much stress. 

“What, you’re really doing this?” says Baekhyeon, bewilderment maturing into laughter.

Sehun shrugs, patting his own shoulder in invitation. “I regularly bench three of you.”

He sees Baekhyeon being conflicted over either huffing in offense or – “Shit, that’s so cool, Sehunnie.” He steps forward and wraps his arms around Sehun.

Sehun hears Baekhyeon giggling softly into his ear at the ridiculousness of this situation. Most of the staff and other models have already retired. There wouldn’t be much fuss anyway if they saw them like this. Their friendship is already quite famous in the company. But it’s still fun, somehow, to carry Baekhyeon like this. He’s so light. Or Sehun is too strong. He secures his hands on Baekhyeon’s thighs and speeds up a bit. It’s quite a walk till the hotel, till their room.

“Oh, I was just getting used to being so high up,” Baekhyeon murmurs when they reach the door. He hops off Sehun. “Thank you.” He singsongs, all elongated vowels and cutesy, and the drowsiest eyes. Sehun snatches the key card from the pocket of his blazer to let them in.

 

 

 

 

 

They sleep in. Well past noon.

Everyone’s left already. The flight for the whole crew took off a few hours ago, Sehun calculates when he opens his eyes and reaches for his phone to check the time.

He looks at the bed across from him. A mess of a Baekhyeon in a mess of a bed. He fell asleep with his hair wet and now it’s a frizzy, poofy tragedy. Sehun bets his own isn’t faring any better.

It’s just them left.

Baekhyeon wakes too when he falls off the bed, yelps, and then their day begins.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a tiny ice cream shop tucked beside a hill. It specializes in gyul favoured ice cream. Sehun and Baekhyeon have breakfast there, and lunch. They try all the cookies they have, all the candied fruit, and the gyul-flavoured everything. The table they’re sitting at allows them to oversee the scenery – small homes, a few gardens, a tiny group of goats. The air is so clean that Sehun’s nose nearly feels irritated by it.

He rests his head on Baekhyeon’s shoulder and demands another spoonful of what Baekhyeon has in his cup. He’s already had three portions of this. Besides the gyul, it has rosewater, and bits of caramelized rose petals, and Sehun understands why Baekhyeon likes it so much within the second it melts on his tongue.

The sky is turning orange, ablaze with the prelude of the sunset when they finally move and venture towards the coast, and find a little patch of sand among the rocks. Pants tugged up, they dip into the water. It’s cold as fuck. Sehun is shivering, Baekhyeon is shivering, but they’re brave, so they keep on going ahead, going ahead, until a big wave comes and drenches them entirely. “Well, fuck it,” says Sehun, now that there is no dryness to be saved anymore, and begins splashing Baekhyeon. It easily transforms into a competition. And it lasts and lasts until some _animal_ that is semi-transparent lands on Sehun’s chest and scares the shit out of him.

“You’re such a baby,” Baekhyeon laughs, trailing after him out of the water. The breeze is warm. It feels so good hitting his frozen skin. He splays himself out on the heated sand.

Baekhyeon stops before him, and looks down at himself. He’s wearing pyjamas. Actual flannel pyjamas, plaid and boring, for he really didn’t bring anything else on this trip besides suits. He doesn’t have to be careful with them, so just a second later, he’s landing next to Sehun. Sand flies everywhere. Sehun spits out a few grains. They starfish together until the very last rays of sunlight are gone.

“I did well, right?” says Baekhyeon after a while. His voice is easeful enough that it mixes with the sound of the waves. “With this trip?” He raises on his butt and begins swiping at his pants. They’re dry enough that the sand falls off. “I really don’t want to be demoted.”

Sehun raises as well. “You did so well, hyeong,” he says, without pondering. People talk about him, the stylists and the models and the photographers. They don’t dispute his suggestions, his orders. Sehun’s only heard good things. And a lot of romantic interest. “Really well.”

Baekhyeon scoffs. He peers at Sehun from the corner of his eye, the gloss of it caught in the light coming from one of the lamps nearby. “I’ll pretend you didn’t just lie to me. Also, you did really well too!”

He has a way of voicing praise that seems utterly artificial, rehearsed. But it’s not. He never says anything he doesn’t believe.

Sehun preens at the compliment.  “I’m speaking the truth.” He runs his hand down the back of Baekhyeon’s thigh to help him with the clump of sand stuck there. “All the gossip I’ve heard about you were good things.”

Baekhyeon smiles and pats at Sehun’s shoulder. “How good?”

Sehun searches through the myriad of comments left in Baekhyeon’s wake that made it to him. “Your hands are sexy,” he settles on. He’s seen at least a few staff members drooling over them.

Baekhyeon’s face falls. Mockingly. “Whoa. I _didn’t_ know that. Are they really?”

“Shut _up_ , hyeong,” laughs Sehun, swatting him.

Baekhyeon fights him, refusing to go away, and yanks him by his arm until he cowers. Baekhyeon’s palm lands on his nape, curled, warm. Then Baekhyeon is raising on his tiptoes and blowing gently over Sehun’s face.

Sehun stills. Baekhyeon blows harder. His breath still carries a citrusy incense. “What—“

“It doesn’t go away,” he says. Sulky. He steps away. “Don’t rub it. You might get cuts.”

Sehun stares at Baekhyeon. There is sand stuck to his face too, and in his hair. Sizeable flakes of seashells freckle his skin. It would really do no good to rub that in.

He bends to take his shoes. “We have a reservation to catch now. And we’re going like this. _Dirty_.”

“Reservation?” mouths Sehun, confused, before he remembers what it is about and jogs to catch up with Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

They do receive a bit of a stink eye from the owner when they step into the restaurant, but they aren’t shooed away at least. Sehun would have insisted anyway if they weren’t let in. They made the reservation the day they arrived here, because Sehun is _not_ leaving without trying the famous black pig.

Twenty minutes later, Baekhyeon moans, and Sehun moans, and with his mouth full, one of them says “How can this be so good?”

The rest of the dinner carries on the same aria – moans and exclamations, the sizzle of the grill, clinks of glasses. The restaurant is busy enough, loud enough, and they manage to be the loudest of them all.

They play rock paper scissors for the last piece of meat, and Sehun is a sore loser, so he snatches the piece before Baekhyeon gets to it and cuts it into two with the scissors. He lets Baekhyeon have the slightly bigger half.

Fortunately, Baekhyeon has eaten so much that he can barely move, let alone break Sehun’s bones when he runs to pay the bill himself. He can glare though, and he ferociously does so, while scolding him, for a good portion of their journey back to the hotel. Sehun’s ear starts hurting from it, and he grabs Baekhyeon and smothers him in an embrace. “Shut up, hyeong, shut _up_ and take my generosity.”

Baekhyeon sputters a bit more, the very last embers of his tirade fading before he thaws against Sehun. He pouts. “You’re still a brat.”

Sehun hums in agreement. He lets go of Baekhyeon.

They are in desperate need of a shower. There is salt and sand and a very strong smell of food on them, so dense they seem coated in a cloud of the scent. As they get off the elevator, Baekhyeon begins speeding up. He doesn’t really run, just does this really determined, hipsy march. Sehun chortles and lets him lead for a while, until Baekhyeon is so close to their door, before he goes after him. Sehun has interminable legs. They’re very useful.

He catches Baekhyeon inside, stopping him on his tracks by wrapping his arms around him from behind. Baekhyeon whines. Sehun lets one of his hands slide, reaching his waist, lower, and settling on his hip. The curve of it fills his palm. Baekhyeon stops squirming and begins giggling as Sehun stoops and runs the bridge of his nose along his neck. Behind all the layers of grime, he still detects that specific, sweet waft that he finds so comforting. Homey.

“You smell delicious,” Sehun whispers. He feels the gulp of Baekhyeon’s throat.

“Oh Sehun, if you _eat_ me—“

Sehun presses his chest to Baekhyeon’s back. “Just one bite,” he says, his mind unable to think of anything else. It takes the smallest motion to have his lips connecting with the skin of Baekhyeon’s neck, to squish against it, and part enough for his teeth to graze it softly. The quick, light lick he does is completely out of his control, pure impulse and boldness. It tastes of warmth, and something fitting with the scent, like he’s always imagined Baekhyeon would taste. Just right.

Baekhyeon is inert. Not rigid, but calm. Sehun pulls away immediately and rounds him. He’s wobbly on his feet. “Not very good,” he says. Three words that have scraped his throat raw on the way out. He slaps a simper on his face, to mask _something_ that he cannot pinpoint, but knows should be veiled from Baekhyeon’s rounded eyes.

“I’ll let you shower first,” Sehun continues before silence gets to ingrain. He reaches for his own suitcase and picks a pair of pants and a tee. He tosses them at Baekhyeon. He doesn’t catch them, so they hit them in the face.

“You’re very generous tonight, Sehunnie,” Baekhyeon says, implying suspiciousness. Sehun rummages through Baekhyeon’s suitcase for a pair of boxers. Baekhyeon catches these.

The bathroom door closes.

Sehun licks his lips. The taste of Baekhyeon is still there. He licks them again, and the taste is gone, taking the thoughts of it along.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun recognizes that he is callow some places. Unsettled.

He uses that to justify the slight intimidation he seldom feels when he’s with Baekhyeon. The level of comfort Baekhyeon has with himself is admirable. He’s grown enough to not care about grown-up-ness, a sense of humour so prominent, an innocence, a tenacity.

This thought, this feeling, hits him in the most random of instances. Baekhyeon doing things that are thought ahead, deep, witty and amiable. The looseness of his way of life, while being disciplined. Caring about the way other see him, but making sure everyone sees exactly what he wants them to see. He’s the one in charge of that.

Sehun gradually notices all of this as Baekhyeon becomes a source of ultimate comfort to him, of openness. Baekhyeon is, in fact, a smarmy little shit of a friend, but loyal and dedicated as fuck. Sehun feels a bit of a better person as, day by day, some of Baekhyeon’s principles infuse into him.

And he wonders if he gives back just as well, just as good. He wonders if Baekhyeon ever has anything to learn from him.

If he values Sehun as much as Sehun values him.

 

 

 

 

 

This morning, Baekhyeon is in white and soft pink.

At noon, Baekhyeon is in white and soft pink.

At dawn, Baekhyeon is in white and soft pink.

What he’s wearing sometimes looks like makeup, pretty, debonair, and other times it looks like tar, the vengeance of a fire, smeared and greedy over his face. It’s all bled out by the end.

And another midnight. Another midnight. Another midnight.

Baekhyeon, at midnight, when he’s sweaty and tired, before he asks to be taken home, smells curiously like petrichor, the aftermath of a gale, the quiet and the ruin.

It’s a side of him that never shows up in the light of day.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s years too late for this to be happening. Way too many years for it to happen now, and leave Sehun putrescent and sour and debilitated.

But maybe Sehun’s seen it coming. Before it leavened into this. Before the comfortable silences and the quarrels and the general mass that constructs their friendship. Before Baekhyeon does the little thing -  the little yank on his wrist, firm and pleading all the same, dragging him in a patch of space large enough so they can dance together. Puts a hand on his waist, squeezes, bring him in, a little, not too much, not overstepping anything, and smiling, encouraging.

As usual. But not this time. This time isn’t the same. This time Baekhyeon is giggly and sassy and his grasp on Sehun doesn’t lessen. Keeps being there, solid, quirked.

It takes a moment, split, not even whole, less than a blink, of Baekhyeon’s shaded eyes looking up at him, black and a passing strobe, _gentle._

And it’s enough for Sehun to suddenly trip and stumble into the crepuscule of his gaze. Easy as that. Sehun falls falls falls into a heap of adoration at Baekhyeon’s feet right on the dance floor.

It’s too late for this shit.

Sehun’s grown enough, too much, too tall, too broad already. He has no use for so much body, so many bones. And yet, he’s never felt really quite complete, quite knowing of himself until this moment. Until this happened, confirmed it – Baekhyeon mindlessly hurling his limbs around, undulant hips, him stepping on Sehun’s foot while simultaneously flying a clumsy elbow into someone’s chest. He’s a mess of man. A happy, beautiful mess of a man.

Baekhyeon twirls to apologize, chortling sheepishly, patting the chest of the man, before he is back facing Sehun in the same twirl. “Is your foot okay?” he slurs, from happiness, not drunkenness. These don’t really go hand in hand for him. Just amplify one another. For tonight.  “Should I kiss it better?” he pouts. The inside of his lip, where it is not really lip anymore, but mouth, flesh, glistens in the gliding light.

Sehun’s hard right now. Without really being aroused, horny, not like that, just wanting, sexual want, but also not really. Not superficial. Just for. For nothing. And he doesn’t need this, doesn’t need the ground running from underneath him right now.

So what Sehun does is drag him closer to the girl that Baekhyeon’s been eyeing over Sehun’s shoulder the entire night, making small jumps so he can peek over the slope while also scolding him for being too big. “Wouldn’t waste those lips on making out with my shoe.”

Baekhyeon stops, blinks, laughs, a standstill in the midst of all this nonsense. “True that.”

And then he lets him go, lets him make out with that girl.

Her hips are amazing. Rounded, smooth, worthy of Baekhyeon’s pretty hands grabbing them, pulling to meet his own.

Sehun _likes_ Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon doesn’t fall into bed with people, he says, on a morning when they’re both eating donuts for breakfast. Things like these shouldn’t be confessed so early, not when they both have sprinkles on their faces up their ears. Baekhyeon picks a few off his cheek, licks them off his fingers, then slurps a sip from his mini Hite can.

“Not in _my_ bed.”

It’s doors instead. Walls, tables, couches, counters, chairs, floors. Not beds if he can help it. And definitely not his bed.

Baekhyeon grabs the last donut, rips it in two and hands Sehun the half that has a thinner layer of glaze since he knows Sehun can’t stomach things that are too sweet so soon after waking up.

In bed he falls only with the people he loves.

 

 

 

Sehun is gay. He tells that to the night sky. Then he says it again, louder.

“I’m gay.”

It should maybe take more than this. More than Baekhyeon.

But it doesn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

Kyeongsu doesn’t like doing this at all, but he is the sort of guy who just clenches his jaw and keeps doing it anyway. He comes to the gym in the morning, before Sehun even starts his shift. Sehun usually finds him running at the very last machine, the one that is broken and has only one speed that is high enough to expel his heart out of his chest. Sehun ignores him until he’s wet and red in the face and he looks about ready to give up on life as he crawls over to where Sehun is warming up and demands to be allowed to kidnap a cold water bottle from the staff fridge for free. Then he pokes Sehun’s butt for him to go get it because he doesn’t have any limbs anymore.

He leans against the mirror, slumped and mushy like an overcooked noodle, as he looks up at Sehun. “When do I get hot? Am I hot already? For how much longer do I need to do this?” He’s not even asking Sehun, just these drifting, drawled mumbles coloured with frustration.

Sehun finishes his lazy little warm up and picks up two weights. He has to hurry through his workout before the clients come and he has to tend to them.

He tries to make a pleading puppy face at Kyeongsu. His face really isn’t meant for that, but he doesn’t know what other tactic to employ to convince Kyeongsu to spot him. It’s not working. “I might die without you?”

Kyeongsu sighs, but gets up and into position at last.

Sehun has too much weight, he gauges by how the breath is knocked out of him on the upstroke, but he is stupidly, drowsily determined to do a few more reps than the last time. Kyeongsu isn’t even really prepared to take it, but he is wearing this look of concern and vigilance. Sehun looks up, at Kyeongsu hovering over him. His jaw is a bit patchy from hasty shaving, his hair is silky and damp falling over his forehead and his damn shirt is sticking to his torso.

So Sehun thinks Kyeongsu is attractive. Kyeongsu has always been attractive. From the moment he first laid eyes on him, that short reaction of _oh_. Now Sehun can put a name on this observation.

“You’re pretty hot already,” Sehun decides to speak now, while his left shoulder feels as though it caught fire. “Your back could still use some work though.”

“You know what, I’d rather die,” he replies, rolling his eyes. He takes the dumbbell away from Sehun mid-rep. He would have dropped it a second later.

Then they’re late to class. They have to run – more running, and on the way, Kyeongsu damns his life through his wheezing.

“A little more and we’re out of this,” Sehun says, to himself, to the both of them, not as an encouragement, but as a reminder.

 

 

 

 

 

On set, Baekhyeon orders riveted mail on him. Off hand, running around, half looking into his phone. No graphite on his fingers. Not yet. There will come lunch for that.

It’s a solo shoot today. And strangely, he feels cold without Jongin behind him. At least Jongin can save the pictures if he does a poor job. Mina is in a bad mood too, demanding painkillers and silence. She didn’t hesitate to announce how her uterus started to puke itself out this morning and it _fucking_ hurts. The atmosphere is staid with acrimony.

He doesn’t need to do much. Push his hips forward, make a moderately constipated face, and hope that the shots don’t turn out disgustingly insipid. Mina whispers at him to turn, angle his pelvis, look forward now.

And there is Baekhyeon. Cables and lights and tables with makeup and racks of clothes and Baekhyeon too. He’s dressed quite simply, that red suit that is plain but curves around him effortlessly. The dark blue button up underneath and a necklace of white pearls around the collar. One of the combinations he always does. He knows they look good, very good, and doesn’t have to think about what to wear in the morning. Something else must be on his mind that he used his emergency outfit. 

Mina is close now, the objective of her camera pointing at Sehun’s chest. The metal is heavy on him, but also comforting, warm, flowing. Baekhyeon slides his eyes from him and onto the screen displaying the shots. A few close-ups of Sehun’s upper thigh. A small nod from Baekhyeon. Mina pokes at him to make him turn around, take a picture of his ass and the breadth of his shoulders covered in the mail.

Then it’s over. Baekhyeon is still at that table. He answers his phone, says a few words, makes to rush out, but not before he gets out of work mode for a jiffy to wave at Sehun and throw him a smile.

His heart jolts at that. An actual jolt, a drunken, sudden soar, unnatural and unhealthy while his fingertips tingle.

From a _hand wave_.

Sehun, inexplicably, laughs.

 

 

 

 

 

There is dew, cool air, wind, a brightening sky. Sehun awakes to this. Awakes outside.

They fell asleep on the platform in front of Sehun’s home, sharing a small blanket and Baekhyeon’s coat, heads resting on a few of Sehun’s textbooks.

He blinks some of the gunk from his eyes away, and looks down at himself, at the arm around his waist, and follows it, slow, in time to see Baekhyeon opening his eyes too. His face crumples, his lids flutter, somnolent and dragged as the surprise overtakes him. He yawns, gazes up at the sky. There is a static, a quietness so deep that it buzzes in Sehun’s ears – then the sporadic interjection of a honk, of a forced engine. Baekhyeon yawns once more, loud now, a little carol of a groan, before Sehun catches it too. He stretches out, his leg falling off the platform for a moment before he sneaks it back under the blanket where all their warmth is trapped.

Baekhyeon is looking at the clouds, then at Sehun, sleepy and sheer, his eyes droopy at the corners, where the little makeup he had on has seeped out. Baekhyeon flings a knee over Sehun, allows him to see a strip of his tummy, before Sehun tucks the coat over him when he shivers.

And then, then he stretches too, grins a tiny simper, dimples, teeth, crescent eyes, another yawn, before he fiddles some more, comes a bit closer, twines his arm properly around Sehun, climbs his head on his shoulder. He is looking up, like Sehun is, at the day coming into being, darkness clearing out.

It’s a collateral feeling - it was. The weird, staged performance of fate that made Sehun bump into Baekhyeon so many times. What it brewed into afterwards.

It’s not too soon for this. It dropped on him all at once, a tide of feelings that refuses to wash him ashore, keeps him between floating and drowning. But it is nothing rushed.

Sehun is in love.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is lying in bed, beside it, on the floor, moribund, cold. He’s not drinking again, he emptily vows to himself, silent, so as not to disturb his sensitive head.

Last night doesn’t come back. It was this morning, in fact, perhaps. Might have been sunlight or a strobe light, or perhaps Baekhyeon grinning at him his glossy, pinked grin, eased by gin and glee. Might have been that.

It’s all he recalls – a night that was not even a night – and then words, not heard by his ears, but only felt in his mouth, floundering down his tongue along with the acerbity of fomenting liquor.

He went out with Baekhyeon, as they usually do. He got drunk, too drunk, in an attempt to get rid of the wobbliness of his legs, the disturbing rattle of his heart as he looked at him. It’s dismaying. He’s not used to this, to seeing Baekhyeon and losing control of all functions of his body and mind. 

Maybe this wasn’t happening before he was aware of what he feels for Baekhyeon. Or maybe it was happening and he doesn’t remember anymore.

Sehun forces himself out of bed for some water.

He’s just taken an exam. There is another one in two days. And another. Just a few more.

He has to study today, just a little more until the semester ends. Not think about Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a make-out resembling a crossfire. Sehun stays where he is, on a couch at the end of the booth, way too close, as he watches an infatuated Baekhyeon being passionate with someone else. It’s his girlfriend perhaps, someone who is more than a fling.

Hera.

He’s seen that name light up on Baekhyeon’s screen way too many times. Sehun would have a face to put on that name now, except he cannot see her. There is Baekhyeon blocking his view of her. Baekhyeon against her, both of them pressed to the wall. The wallpaper is light. They’re a bundle of umbral amour in the middle of a broad expanse, contrasting with it.

Lips misfitting, limbs misfitting, wrong and off and shrill and agitated that Sehun winces from the sight. Over Baekhyeon’s shoulders, her fingers grab, dig, her talons painted merlot, chipped and wanton.

And Baekhyeon likes it. Her. Of course, of course.

Sehun turns back to the table, sips his coffee, takes his phone out and bugs Kyeongsu with bullshit until he gets annoyed enough that he stops ignoring him.

Baekhyeon returns, alone, donning a demilune of a smile, resplendent and gracile, gone, absorbed by the night before Sehun’s heart has time to react to it.

 

 

 

 

 

The semester ended. It’s summer break.  

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun will not deny that he nurses a bit of ignorance towards the subject. It’s a preference, but it’s suppressible – he could not act on it, not think about it, not _be_ gay.

He didn’t see the true appeal of this before. He can recognize a handsome man. A sexy man. He can see what others find attractive in a man. He’s had crushes on them, he is aware now, short-lived – his desk-mate in high school who had a dreamily mellifluent voice; the one guy who comes always at the gym after work, singing trot songs under his breath as he lifts. More casual things – wanting to feel the lips of the boy next waiting for the subway on his own, wanting to pinch the rosy cheeks of another boy, in winter, wanting to warm his cold hands. These feelings were stale, detached, as though not his own.

When he watched porn, he just slipped by the men on men scenes, maybe persisted a bit out of curiosity – as porn can get quite out of hand sometimes - but he never stayed on these videos. And that doesn't count. What he likes in porn doesn’t count. He’s only looking for a bit of an excitant, when he’s already sunken in the brume of horniness, and that is not a state of mind coherent enough, personal enough for it to be telling of anything.

He looks at imagines first. Classy pictures, nearly passing into boudoir photography style while being decidedly sexual. It’s not the angles, nor the lacy accessories that makes them beautiful.

Sehun wonders how the body of one of them would feel against his. The skin must have another texture, another give.

He progresses to racier pictures –  depicting not only smooth, thigh-high clad men posing for the camera, but ones that are amateurish, natural, hard dicks out and untrimmed pubes, unflattering angles and close-ups.

Sehun bites his lip, diffident and turned on, before he presses play on a video. It’s a mildly gay one, of a gaunt, shrimpy boy fingering himself, bringing himself to climax slowly, without touching himself, his cock trapped and neglected between his thighs. Then a bit gayer, a blowjob, then, even gayer, some butt sex that he could watch only a few seconds of, mostly due to the shitty camera work.

 

Sehun exits the incognito tab and shuts down his laptop. He breaths out, closing his eyes.

 

No. Save for the masturbation one, they were all equally gay. It was all still sex with two men involved, and it turned him on as much as it terrified him.

 

His thoughts succumb to the speck of denial in him that has yet to die – he’s not one of _these_ people, who are into such things. He found some images off putting, if not straight up disgusting. He wants to think of the people engaged in the action in derogatory terms. Put them in a category that makes them lesser. Which he is _not_ part of.

 

It’s the same thing that made him hope that he would not like it, or at least it would do nothing for him.

 

Sehun sighs, running his hand through his hair, pulling, over and over, until he gets a grip on himself.

 

Sehun is gay. Just gay. And that’s okay.

 

They’re just people pleasuring themselves, pleasuring other people. People loving. Just people. Nothing bad. Nothing to be shunned. Nothing less valid.

 

He unfurls, breathing out.

He wants to try it too, to see what that boy did to make himself shake like that with just two fingers up his ass, blow a load without touching his cock. He needs lube for that. Where does he get that from? From everywhere. The 7Eleven two minutes away, the shelf above the q-tips. He’s both too embarrassed and too lazy for that. He looks up alternatives. First thing he finds is how to make some himself. Xanthan gum, or guar gum, water, glycerine, something scented, and he will have like two litres of the holy slime. Put it into cute jam jars, put a frilly-edged label on it, name it something like ‘derriere goo’ so it doesn’t exactly sound like something that helps stick things up asses. Then spread it on toast one morning by mistake.

Or use an oil, a cream.

Still, he picks none of these. He’s still turned on, the head of his cock smeared with precome and pushing at his pants. He takes them off and works it until he is wet enough to jerk himself as he usually does. He dares to ghost a hand downward to his hole. He rubs slowly, dry as it is, as it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t scratch, but it provides a curiously strong stimulation by its bizarreness, its novelty alone. He licks his fingers, and dashes them back and forth between his perineum and his hole, playing, pressing, as he tugs at his cock.

Sehun doesn’t think of Baekhyeon, oddly, even though he has material of this nature to recall. He’s heard Baekhyeon moan, for someone else. He’s seen him grinding up against someone else. He’s seen his eyes fluttering, so prettily, as someone etched kisses into his neck. He’s seen him hard, his erection tenting his pants. He’s seen him bumbling out of a club bathroom, his zipper not done all the way, cheeks flushed, mouth red, and the most satisfied expression on his face.

Sehun’s witnessed all of this. Seeing Baekhyeon being intimate with someone else turned him on as much as it irked him.

But his mind doesn’t go there. He only thinks of himself, and this new, vaguely strange pleasure. Sehun just thinks of the response of his body, the tickles and the heat, and the numb but frantic need to get off.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon’s eyes don’t see him, Sehun notices suddenly.

It’s deliberate, conditioned by the fact that all he sees in Sehun is friendship. A curtain that won’t let him assume any of Sehun’s behaviours are more than platonic. So it’s wittingly that he doesn’t see Sehun, for he stares at Sehun with familiar warmth, touches him the same, yet he reads nothing into Sehun’s responses to them.

Sehun doesn’t flirt with him, doesn’t go out of his way to do anything, but the effect Baekhyeon has on him sometimes shows up, more than the stutters, but the stares too, the startle to being touched.

Baekhyeon doesn’t see any of this. He plays with, teases him, lives with him, but there is not a single speck of realization.

Sehun decides right now that he will not say anything. Not until Baekhyeon gives any sign of attraction towards him, not until it’s clear that such news wouldn’t wreck their friendship.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s rich. Stupidly rich perhaps, Sehun gauges by how brimful and sharp his confidence is. It’s in the scent, then the gait, then the aura, a dusting of electrum. “I’m wearing what you’re wearing on that billboard in Apgujeong,” he starts with, voice so deep it’s erosive, and curled, coiled with intent. Sehun licks a lost grain of salt from his lips.

“What am I wearing in Apgujeong?” he asks. There is a display of him right next to the pavilion. A colleague at uni pointed it out to him a while ago, but Sehun has no idea what picture it actually is.

In reply, the man laughs, with humour, actual humour and a bountiful smile and says, “I’m Chanyeol.”

This is when Sehun turns attentive. This is when Sehun understands. This isn’t playing. This isn’t “friendly” flirting.

Sehun looks him up and down. Once. He barely makes it back to his hips before he decides that Chanyeol is attractive as fuck. “Chanyeol,” repeats Sehun, getting closer.

“Oh!” An exclamation of surprise sopping with lure, “You’re a Chanyeol too?”

Sehun likes it. The sound of his name. The way he says his own name. He’ll be saying the same name tonight, over and over, and then the light of day will never catch him with it on his lips. Surely.

“You know who I am,” Sehun reminds, grinning.

Sehun is famous now, somewhat. He sees some people looking at him as though they’re trying to place him, randomly, briefly. But it’s a first for someone to approach him only based on that.

He steps closer. Instinct of keeping all of this – this pointless conversation – isolated between them. This is not the sort of club, not the sort of audience that is comfortable with what they’re getting at. Sehun is surprised Chanyeol even took the risk of approaching him like this here.

Baekhyeon is lost somewhere, not with him anymore, and Sehun isn’t drunk enough yet to plunge into the gloomy, ashy state of longing that the depths of inebriation wrench him into. And it’s easy to be charmed by Chanyeol when he aims to do nothing but. He’s raunchy just right.

They go to Chanyeol’s house. An actual house on the bank of the Han in the heart of the city. Rich boy indeed. Maybe Sehun heard of him too, saw his face too, if he cared enough for that to look properly at him. What he cares about instead is the fact that Chanyeol is a rich boy with thick, thick lips, and Sehun gets to kiss them as soon as they go through the gates.

He fits with Chanyeol, their bodies long enough, their mouths hungry enough. All the lust. It’s discordant, bumpy, breathless. Exactly like a hook-up should be. Disregardful, fast, dirty. There isn’t even a reason to moan, a reason to give. It’s all take, all rough, urgent.

It’s too late already, Sehun feels, as soon as Chanyeol kisses the juncture of his hips. It’s too late. Chanyeol _is_ skilled, _is_ eager, and there is satisfaction, plenty of, but it’s mechanical, depthless, only his body replying to it and his mind elsewhere. He ends up thinking of Baekhyeon, and how it takes the briefest touch from him for Sehun to crumble, to shake harder than he does now, when Chanyeol’s full mouth is wrapped tight around him over the condom. 

But he says his name, not Baekhyeon’s, thrusts into his mouth, not Baekhyeon’s, until the pleasure builds enough to will away all the thoughts.

Sehun doesn’t wait for the leavings of his orgasm to die down before he slides between Chanyeol’s legs to return the favour. It’s not intimidating. He’s not nervous. Sehun swiftly tightens a hand around him, licks up the shaft. Chanyeol has a big fucking dick that fills his mouth to the brim just with the head, but still, he does his best, goes lower, swallows more. His jaw aches. The corners of his lip burn. It’s hard to breathe, and his eyes tear up. But Sehun enjoys doing it anyway. He listens to Chanyeol. His moans, his deep voice has plummeted into a tone that is abrasive, broken. He’s under Chanyeol’s guidance – a hand on his jaw, and words, commands and encouragements. Sehun is learning fast. Sehun is doing well. They haven’t talked anything about how Sehun has never been with a man before - it was already obvious from his clumsiness. It’s a detail that turns Chanyeol on, it appears, for his cock to be the first one ever to go into Sehun’s mouth. It turns Sehun on too, this mini show of Chanyeol power tripping at the expense of his inexperience.

The head of his cock hits the back of Sehun’s throat, on account of his stupid bravery, and he chokes, violent spasms in his chest. He manages to not bite him at least, and sucks him back in before he has the chance to slip out from his mouth. It’s equivalently pleasing as it is disheartening the fact that he cannot taste Chanyeol. It’s just the latex. And it shifts slightly along with his tongue, making him work extra hard. It’s abundantly gratifying when Chanyeol comes, still in his mouth. Even though he cannot taste it, he can feel the tip of the condom filling, making a small pouch with the release.

Sehun looks up at Chanyeol as he pulls out. His chest is heaving, and he’s kind of smiling.

A few more jolts of that gratification course through Sehun before they too evanish and clarity sets it. He has to go home. Maybe Baekhyeon will come over to crash instead of going to his place, if it’s closer or something. Or if he wants to eat. And he has some schoolwork to do over the summer. Baekhyeon would want him to do his schoolwork.

Sehun is already putting his pants on.

Chanyeol, barely dressed, walks him back to the gates, kisses him again just as keen as when they entered, then the gates close, the whole affair, and Chanyeol, remaining behind them.

Sehun runs to catch the last running bus. He rests his temple on the cold window.

He liked it.

But it’s too late.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun watches lachrymose dramas. He cries at the end, in the middle, whenever the drama wants him to. There will be the right speech and the right music and the slash of a sword, the splatters of blood, and Sehun will cry.

He has to watch something funny afterwards. Puppies chasing their own tails. So he falls asleep late, near dawn, wakes up late, skips breakfast and is moody and dopey all day.

He promises himself he’s never doing that again.

He does it again.

And again.

Sehun pauses the drama halfway and turns away from the laptop. He curls into a ball and tugs the duvet over himself, trying to find sleep.

It takes hours.

This is the intemperance of love. This freneticism and void and tangles and general mess that Sehun would like to end. Its subsets. This is it.

Sehun turns back, presses play, lets the episode end, and then, then sleep claims him.

 

 

 

 

 

The pot doesn’t even bubble over. It’s all contained in there, the cloud of egg floating peacefully in the broth, beads dancing by the rim of the stone bowl. They made the stock themselves for once, instead of using dasida powder, though they weren’t patient enough to boil it for as long as it needed.

Placed on the small table though, it does look kind of very perfect, risen and fluffy and bright yellow. Sehun uses the scissors to cut a few blades of green onion on top. They stare a bit at it. Sehun takes a picture and promptly sends it to Kyeongsu to show him that he can be a functional human being and nurture himself. _It’s photoshop_ , responds Kyeongsu just as promptly. Sehun isn’t deterred. Baekhyeon is still making heart eyes at it.

They both pick a spoonful, blow on it, and eat at the same time. Seasoned just right, soft but not too soft, and not too diluted either. Baekhyeon’s eyes widen, all the more dramatic with the border of burgundy around them.

Sehun swallows, bends a bit closer to whisper. “I think we did it.”

Baekhyeon nods. “Fuck, it’s amazing.”

They have conducted about ten trials so far. The first times it actually tasted bad, for some inexplicable reason, then it became a texture matter, and now it’s perfect. The perfect gyeranjjim. Sehun rises his hand and Baekhyeon high-fives him in a flash. They share a triumphant smile.

They both have a cup full of rice, and they clink these, since they have no drinks on the table and are too lazy to get up and get something else.

“My mom would be proud of me,” Baekhyeon says, when they’re halfway through the bowl and they are still all too amazed by it.

“ _I_ ’m proud,” Sehun replies with a tugged smirk, forced around the mouthful of food he has.

“Of me?”

“Of _me_.”

Baekhyeon wrinkles his nose, slurps some broth from his spoon. “Still, we make a good team.”

They do, indeed. Two grown ass men being way too elated over managing to seam a couple of eggs into some stock. A very good team.

They bicker over who has to scrub the pot afterwards. Baekhyeon suggest to just throw it in the trash and buy another one, but then he smiles and pushes Sehun away from the sink when he makes to wash it.

 

 

 

 

 

It should start with words, Sehun ideates, not with a kiss. Words, not premeasured, but assured by repetition, by the full, complete blooming of what they should convey _. I love you_ , Sehun should say, clear, close, gentle. See the weight of the confession marbling right into the black, gossamer luminosity of Baekhyeon’s eyes.

This sort of thoughts creep up on him too often, too random. Through all the little lulls in between the everyday nothings – waiting at a red light, brushing his teeth, the millisecond it takes for a website to load on his browser, the time it takes for water to boil for his instant coffee, the snippets of lucidity as he changes position in his sleep. The thoughts multiply, deepen. His mind continues to brew his affections for Baekhyeon even while he’s asleep, while he’s not present to govern them.

And each morning it’s worse, better, worse, better. He will have brunch with Baekhyeon today. Better. He will smile. Better. At Sehun. Better. And then, at someone else. Worse. Will touch someone else. Worse. Will kiss someone else. Worse. Worse. Worse.

Sehun falls back into bed, waits for his second alarm to ring.

 

 

 

 

 

Third year, second semester. It’s still hot as fuck, even though it’s mid-September. Sehun’s leg is cramping on him too much to get up for some water to soothe his dry throat.

He hears a call of his name, Baekhyeon’s voice, then a knock on the door, a ring hitting the wrinkled glass, before he tumbles in, a bag in his hand. He has strawberries in there, Sehun can already see the box through the sheer plastic. Probably the second, and last batch of the season, kind of overripe and tasteless. To Baekhyeon, awful strawberries are better than no strawberries.

Sehun glances at his phone, a quarter of it peeking out from under his mess of textbooks, and catches the green light flickering. Perhaps Baekhyeon already announced his arrival by asking if Sehun needs anything from the supermarket, as he usually does, and Sehun didn’t see it.

Baekhyeon has just finished untying his shoes – he never toes them off, when he freezes for a second. “Oh, didn’t know you had someone over.” He bows, smiles, to Kyeongsu, who is sitting at the other end of the low table.

They’ve been studying for a long while already that it’s easy to defocus, to be distracted by Baekhyeon. Kyeongsu bows back, whispering a greeting.

Baekhyeon scurries to the sink to wash the strawberries. He comes back with them in a bowl, sitting next to them and trying to make friends with Kyeongsu in less than a few seconds. Kyeongsu isn’t terribly talkative, nor sociable, but he doesn’t have to be either of these things in order to feel good in Baekhyeon’s presence, to want to talk to him. Baekhyeon is eager to listen, is eager to talk, to be impressed by what Kyeongsu is saying regarding what he’s studying. Sehun takes the small knife from the bowl and begins topping the strawberries one by one, making sure to cut the sour yellow parts too, if there are any.

The conversation dies down cosily, and it’s replaced with the sound of Baekhyeon drawing in his sketchbook – coloured pencils this time – and the sporadic questions between Sehun and Kyeongsu about the project. Baekhyeon is absorbed in his work, silent, and Sehun, unthinkingly, seldom, picks a strawberry and pushes it to Baekhyeon’s lips. He continues drawing, chewing, Sehun writes one more sentence, gives him another strawberry, carries on. He picks the softer, sweeter ones for him, and keeps the harder, tart ones for himself. Kyeongsu doesn’t like them at all.

The bowl has been empty for a while when Baekhyeon closes his sketchbook and stretches out. He yawns, big, and then bids them a jaunty goodbye and a “Fighting!”. He pets Sehun’s head on the way to the door, promises to take him out tomorrow. One more goodbye for Kyeongsu, and a bow. Then he’s out, gone as quick as he’s come.

There is never really silence in Baekhyeon’s wake. He leaves the air charged, scented.

Kyeongsu shuts his laptop. “So he’s the reason you’ve been moping.” Matter-of-factly.

Sehun doesn’t say anything. He’s more surprised by Kyeongsu naming his mood, his state ‘moping’ than he is about the fact that he’s so perceptive, that he’s already caught on on what Sehun feels about Baekhyeon.

He nods, to himself, and closes his notebook too, putting a textbook over it. They only have to do a few chapters of reading for the presentation and then it’s done.

“He’s…pretty,” Kyeongsu speaks afterwards.

A well picked word to describe him – it’s not generic. He’s handsome too, masculine too, strong and level-headed, and also, cheery, cordial, considerate. All of these, together, show through in his appearance, make him pretty.

“You are both proud dads of gyeranjjim bowls.”

Sehun simpers, despite himself. It’s a nice way to word the fact that Sehun is gay, and has a crush on a dude. He didn’t even have to come out.

He turns off the Wi-Fi connection on his phone before he’s tempted to procrastinate. He turns it on again, then off. “I don’t think he wants to be dads with me.” 

Kyeongsu frowns, then nods. “I think you’re right.” He gives up on the page he was reading and skips about ten pages ahead. He peers at Sehun with understanding. “Male dick-likers are rare.”

“Very rare,” Sehun thinks. Based on stats. On odds. On the acceptance. On how it’s often it’s treated as nothing more than a joke, or a phase. On unwillingness to acknowledge it.

“I’ll just say you’re special,” Kyeongsu hums, still pleasant, but duller, for he has started reading the page.

Right, time to study now. Time to cram his head full of nonsense so the society finds him valuable.

Not the time to wonder whether Baekhyeon could be a dick-liker too.

He slings his cramping leg over Kyeongsu’s lap and begins doing just that.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun wonders if he’s obvious. He has to be. There has to be a literal darkening to his eyes as he looks at Baekhyeon. When he wants him so much, when he cherishes him so much that it’s not even physical anymore, not with the way it sometimes steals his balance and his breath and leaves him gasping in a clump of yearning. It has to be obvious, since Sehun doesn’t feel like he even _is_ anything else but his attraction to Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

“Why were you crying that day?” Sehun asks. Because maybe, he’s seeing something similar right now on Baekhyeon. Maybe, perhaps. He’s wearing the same glasses as that day.

Baekhyeon frowns. “When, what?“

“You were eating at a fast food restaurant, alone. Spring. Before you met me.”

The third meeting, Sehun remembers, limpid. It was a great moment, for he hasn’t, till then, and from then, ever been able to see so well behind a façade, to distinguish so many details about a person.

Baekhyeon perks for a second before his expression turns contemplative. Curiously, it looks good with his outfit, with all the velvet. “I don’t know. Really. I don’t know. There was no reason for it. At least, I felt no reason. But still, I needed it. Felt kind of right. I don’t remember.” He reaches for his coffee, and noisily slurps the very last drop from the glass. “Whatever it was, it passed.”

Sehun nods. He considers not pressing more but – “Do you feel like that now? As you did then?”

Baekhyeon’s face, instead of twisting with another expression, only smoothens out. It takes a while for his answer to come. He drafts it all whilst he looks at Sehun. “Maybe I would feel like crying right now, but I’m here with you, so.”

Sehun bites his lip. He can’t conjure an answer beside another nod. Baekhyeon takes that, simpering.

It’s later, pretty much later, when Sehun is by himself, that he realizes that Baekhyeon never questioned how and when he saw.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun eats ramyeon. He’s lovelorn. He eats ramyeon. He eHHpokes at the overcooked egg in the broth. Sehun is lovelorn. He’s alone in Baekhyeon’s apartment. He simply itched to see him, missed him, something about today made him crave his presence a lot. And he’d thought, for not answering his phone, Baekhyeon was sleeping or something. Sleeping, not doing anything else, not being _anywhere_ else.

Baekhyeon isn’t home. Not this home. Someone else’s home perhaps. In a bed perhaps. Hera’s.

Sehun found a pack of extra spicy ramen at the very back of one of the cabinets, just days away from its expiration date. Everything burns, feels like it’s dissolving, his entrails becoming soot.

Sehun is lovelorn and chases the egg around the pot, stabs it, nibbles on it, then goes back home.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon has been dating Hera for few months already. It’s not only in the background, but in the foreground too. Unlike when he was married, Sehun is constantly reminded about his relationship with her, even though it’s rarely in his sight.

Very cute eyes, long hair, a tiny drop of boyishness to her whole countenance. Loud but gracious. Her hand, in Baekhyeon’s, slim fingers over slim fingers. Her preference for button down shirts, collars open and pulled at the shoulders. A thin necklace with a thin pendant around her neck. A boisterous laugh, but pretty, captivating. A playfulness, feminine in its essence, flirty too, plenty of teasing touches while her tone is deadpan.

Sehun hears about her from Baekhyeon. Where she is sometimes, what she’s doing. Something cute she’s found online that she shared with him, and Baekhyeon immediately shared it with Sehun too. Baekhyeon doing a review of a movie that he’s watched with her. The little, dreamy sigh Baekhyeon let out as he told about how good she looked in her new yellow sweater.

And Baekhyeon isn't one of those people who completely forget about their friends the moment they get a girlfriend. At most, he cancelled a meal or two on Sehun, refused one or two outings. Otherwise, whenever Sehun called, asked him to take him out maybe, asked him to dine together because Sehun cannot stand eating alone anymore, whenever he texted him to help him with his English, Baekhyeon came, always, no questions asked, no matter how late. He took off his suit, showered, burrowed himself in Sehun’s clothes and he was right by him, mouth full as he directed Sehun, told him about grammar and pronunciation. Orange powder at the corners of his lips from his corn puffs and his bared toes sneaked under Sehun’s thighs, seeking warmth.

Sehun would have hurt more to witness this if an infatuated, crushing Baekhyeon wasn’t so beautiful, so lovely. The relationship is still fresh enough that it has the honeymoon vibe, all the jitters and the giggles and the wild sex. Baekhyeon still doing his best to impress her every day, to make her happy every day. Baekhyeon combing his hair over and over, and puckering him lips, and then asking Sehun to take a picture of him to send her. “Can’t meet her today to give her a real kiss, but I can’t leave her kiss-less either,” he said, pouting.

He got a kiss back and Sehun stood there, completely enamoured with the shy, soft simper Baekhyeon directed at his phone, at her.

He can’t feel any jealousy. He can’t feel any bitterness.

Baekhyeon is happy, and that’s something that matters to Sehun more than his own feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

Jongin is attractive. Objectively, subjectively, and all the in-betweens. He’s kind of really fucking cute and sexy all at once and a very hardworking loner.

He’s dancing tonight, and it’s an overdue sight. Sehun’s known Jongin for so long, heard him talking of nothing but dance for so long, and he only gets to see him now. It’s mesmerizing. Sehun can’t take his eyes off him. The flute he has in his hand tips over and spills some wine on the floor before he catches it and finishes it in one gulp.

This is the after party of a show. Sehun and Jongin and Minho were ‘borrowed’ to walk down the runway for a fashion presentation by a partner label to the company. Sehun learned how to put a foot in front of the other ten minutes before the show started. He didn’t stumble, surprisingly, and he wasn’t _too_ awkward. There is a chance he might be called to walk again. Hopefully.

He’s a bit tipsy now, having stolen a few flutes off the passing trays. The song ends and Jongin comes straight to him. He’s drunk too, just enough to not get super sleepy, because when isn’t Jongin sleepy, so he’s in high spirits and a bit shameless.

“I didn’t know you could do _that_ ,” Sehun says. He says it too loud. This is not a club. There is music, loud enough, but nowhere near that deafening volume.

Jongin gets timid in an instant, the canopy of lewd cockiness he was wearing while dancing dropping. He bites his lip. His mouth is full, a shape that is both rounded and angular. Pretty.

Sehun is sad and Jongin is gorgeous (not as gorgeous as – _no_ ) and he doesn’t stop himself from looking at Jongin like that, with want, but reserved, true but reserved want, just because he could never see himself touching someone else, not when - and Jongin is also _blushing_ now.

“I can teach you how to do _that_ ,” Jongin offers.

He does. He makes Sehun mimic his movements to some degree, and it ends up being more laughter and random ass shaking than actual dancing. Sehun is strong, too much so, it seems, for he cannot control the strength he puts in the sway of his limbs. It’s okay though. It’s enough of a distraction. They do it until the little alcohol they had in them wears off. Before they leave the dance floor, Jongin comes close to him, closer, and presses a chaste kiss to Sehun’s cheek.

“This is all I can give you,” he says into Sehun’s ear. He pulls away, simpers. Jongin is an angel, Sehun thinks. He then takes his hand, draws him out, so they can sober up for good, waddle to the subway and send each other home for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun lapses into a timeless period, where days seem to last for a second and nights are bottomless and too bright. Everything hurts, his body squidgy and flabby after letting himself pickle in all the salt his diet of junk food provided. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt alive. All Sehun feels are the pangs of the ache on his neck, around his shoulders. The sleepiness and the hunger of the stress. And Kyeongsu cursing, aloud, with pathos, when something doesn’t work out.

Some fragments of Baekhyeon, encouraging him, feeding him, making him shower. There is no campaign now. The shoot for the spring collection is finished, edited, about to be printed already. Sehun has no business going by Baekhyeon’s office. All he has to do is gather the remainder of his credits, finish up his bachelor thesis.

He slithers from colleague to colleague, sits next to them, inquires. Does his job well. Research well. Don’t forget to reserve a seat at the library. Goes home, turns off his phone, dumps four packets of instant coffee into a single cup, studies, and maybe doesn’t forget to drag himself into the bed instead of dozing off at his desk, faceplanting into an empty plate or something.

And meanwhile, he thinks of Baekhyeon. Involuntarily, and voluntarily and obsessively. One more worry added to his tally. But it’s no doubt that it’s still Baekhyeon’s presence that calms him the most. His heart beating so fast it seems a continuous tandem. Not singular, spaced beats, but a whole, rabbiting fullness that soothes him.

After class, after studying, sometimes, he shows up at Baekhyeon’s. Sometimes he’s not even home yet. Sehun texts him to bring food, if he remembers. And he does. He brings coffee too. Greets Sehun like he’s the pet he’s left home, feeds him, scratches at his head a little as he moves around, takes off his suit, showers, comes back and lounges on the sofa behind Sehun. Scrolls through his phone, sketches, laughs, keeps scratching at Sehun, cheers him on.

And then, barely two months later, when it’s cold as fuck, it’s over. It’s fucking over.

Sehun scores a 92 and is done with college.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon doesn’t come to the graduation ceremony, but he hasn’t forgotten about it either. He texts Sehun congratulations first thing in the morning, all typos and emoticons and he’s probably back asleep before Sehun replies. He grins.

The charade stretches and drags for the entire day. His parents come, along with his grandmother, and they bring him chocolate instead of flowers, kiss his cheeks, get a little bit emotional. This is what everyone is doing around them – gathered in tight little anthills and being giddy over the end of this level of hell. Sehun has his cap and his gown and his diploma and he can only be this happy for so long, before he says goodbye to everyone and goes home to have the longest, laziest, comfiest nap he’s taken in years.

 

 

 

 

 

“Did you get divorced again?” Sehun asks, yawning big in the middle of the sentence.

Baekhyeon hugs the two bottles of champagne closer to his chest, hoists the bag hooked over his fingers so it doesn’t slip. It does anyway. Sehun takes it from him.

“Freedom asks for champagne. Always,” Baekhyeon says, entering and bending to untie his shoes. Sehun takes the champagne too, and deposits everything on the counter in the kitchen.

His eyes are crusty and his skin is a bit icky from sweat. He still feels amazing. A six-hour nap is magical like that.

Baekhyeon finally totters in, socked feet padding towards Sehun as he’s blindly looking around for the box of coffee. He’s surprised with Baekhyeon jumping on him, giving him a back hug and digging his face into Sehun’s back. “Congratulations for making it out alive, Sehun-ah!” Sehun laughs, revels in the touch, before he turns to face Baekhyeon.

“Where is my present?”

Baekhyeon makes a show of presenting the bowtie around his neck. He blinks. “Here, obviously. It’s me.” And he stares at Sehun kind of blank while all his muscles seize before he bursts into laughter and moves away. He goes to Sehun’s closet and pulls out one of Sehun’s thickest jackets. He sheds his own woollen, elegant coat before he envelops himself with the jacket. He looks like a balloon. A cute balloon.

“Now let’s eat and freeze!”

 

 

 

 

 

It is way too cold for this for about fifteen minutes, but then some thinner pieces of meat are cooked already, and Sehun already sipped half a bottle of soju and two instant coffees and he’s already high and merry and not really cold anymore, fighting with Baekhyeon over who can flip the most garlic slices using just one chopstick. Baekhyeon brought plenty of food and plenty of alcohol and he systematically feeds everything to Sehun until the dam breaks and Sehun complains about everything this college made him suffer through. Baekhyeon is here. Baekhyeon offers his shoulder to Sehun and takes his cold hand and warms it up and _listens_. 

It’s late into the night, getting colder, and they both huddle close on the platform, let the little burner running just so they have the heat going. The champagne is really good. Sehun mixes it with soju and now it’s even better. Baekhyeon pretends to be affronted, but he likes this outrageous concoction just as much gauging from how rapidly he’s downing it.  Sehun is drunk now, and lionhearted, stupidly, greatly so, and pulls the collar of Baekhyeon’s jacket away so he can nose into his neck on skin. Baekhyeon yelps when Sehun’s frozen nose makes contact, but doesn’t move away.

He takes Sehun’s dropped cap from among the empty containers and puts it on his head. He opens the front camera to check how he’s looking. The image is grainy from the darkness, and Sehun’s too comfy where he is to peek his head out and look at how the hat sits on Baekhyeon’s head for real.

“Nah, this doesn’t suit me at all,” Baekhyeon says, then takes it off over and puts Sehun’s head. It doesn’t really stay in this position, but Baekhyeon persists, brushing away his bangs stabilizing it as best as he can over Sehun’s head.

“I don’t think it suits anyone,” Sehun says. He grabs a bottle of water and pours some in the pan before the dry bits left in it start burning. The cap falls.

“You look pretty good,” Baekhyeon counters, stretching out a little. He then winks at Sehun, drunken and miss coordinated, and he bursts into a broad simpler before he even finishes his wink. Sehun will die of tachycardia, of Baekhyeon’s grin. Sehun will fucking die. Can’t he _stop_ doing things to Sehun.

“You’re not going home tonight, hyeong,” Sehun says instead, snuggling closer.

“Yeah yeah,” Baekhyeon replies, grabs his other hand, warms it too.

And they’re lazy fucks who can’t be bothered to clean after themselves now, so they go inside leaving that mess behind to be cleaned in the morning. Baekhyeon takes a short shower and comes back, slightly damp, mutters an “I’m sure water hasn’t even touched like half of my body,” before he slides under the duvet next to Sehun. He doesn’t smell of soy sauce anymore, but not of body wash either. The plaster, the makeup on his face is gone too. His frontage is wiped off and all that is left behind is the bare, blemished, blinding grin.

Sehun pulls him close.

 

 

 

 

 

Morning. Morning. Late. Noon now. Sehun falls back into bed.

It’s been three days since Sehun finished uni. It’s over. It’s done.

And Sehun already, already wonders if this will be all his life. A continuance of things he can’t wait to be over.

 

 

 

 

 

Today Baekhyeon is wearing aubergine, on his clothes, under his eyes, on his cheek, and around a small bud of red where his lip is split. Sehun rushes him in, alarmed.

“Hera’s ex. He didn’t know he was her ex.  And I only found out when he found _me_ out.”

Sehun stills. This sounds like a mess. A mess Sehun would have never expected to take place given how secure, how close their relationship was.

“How did it end up at aggression?” Sehun queries, taking some ice cubes out and wrapping them in a towel. Baekhyeon places the offering at his temple.

“Her boob was in my mouth when he entered the apartment.” He grins, amused. Then he shakes his head.

“Oh,” is all Sehun can manage. He doesn’t want to think about that image. Nor about anyone laying a hand on Baekhyeon. Anyone hurting him. He feels protectiveness pulling at him, making him imagine, just for a moment, about hunting the faceless dude down and crushing his bones.

It passes quickly. He relaxes - Sehun is back to brushing the hairs away from Baekhyeon’s face.

“She was like me. She treated me like I treat others. A fling.” He moves the towel to his mouth. “At least initially. But I don’t doubt she really liked me.”

Sehun doesn’t either. He caught on all the gestures of affection Hera showed towards Baekhyeon. That wasn’t the lie. The lie was the trust she demanded.

Sehun never truly thought ill of her. She didn’t exist to be the villain in his life. She was just someone enamoured with Baekhyeon, and that is something Sehun can understand, can relate to. He could never condemn it.

“It was a huge misunderstanding mostly?” Baekhyeon rattles on weakly. “She didn’t really break up with him, they just drifted apart, so he didn’t know that they weren’t together anymore.”

A situation like this reminds him of high school, and how a couple of such lover’s spats circulated around on a daily basis. He found them amusing then, but now he doesn’t find it funny at all.

“I would have fought, you know,” says Baekhyeon, with half a mouth while he’s icing the other one. “If I didn’t see how she just…had no intention of fighting too? She wanted to go back to him, I was sure of it.”

Sehun takes over and presses the towel to Baekhyeon’s face when he sees his hand fiddling on it from the cold. He smiles in thanks at Sehun before he goes on. “I don’t think she did anything on purpose. I think she just never realized that she wasn't over him. I was the unintentional rebound.”

Sehun feels happy about this, but not for himself. All the happiness he feels right now is for the fact that Baekhyeon didn't get played, wasn't dragged on and fell deeper for someone who wasn't fully into him, who wasn’t truthful to him.

This happiness has nothing to do with himself.

He looks at Baekhyeon’s face. The skin is embossed with throbbing pain and a lot of disappointment. But it still looks good. He is still beautiful.

Baekhyeon breathes out. It’s the fibril of a sigh in the heart of winter. Heartbreak. Perhaps, at least a small, minuscule chasm, showing all the way to his mien. Baekhyeon liked her, liked this one, at least a bit, which is way more than most.

Sehun is here. He will probably be in this place, across from Baekhyeon, consoling him regarding love matters many times from now on. He shall get used to it.

Sehun brings out more ice and tends to Baekhyeon, patches him back up.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun’s never dealt with this order before. It was always attraction first, definite to a point, the flirt, the intention, predatory, yenning somewhat. At least a spark of romantic or sexual interest.

But with Baekhyeon it was just empathy, then friendship. It started out as innocent, as clean as possible. There was really no trace of attraction before. There was just Intrigue. Simple intrigue. A mind can find anything intriguing when in the craze of ennui. And his found Baekhyeon, the dolled up stranger.

This order though, seems right, crushing as it is, it’s right, even with how lost Sehun is right now.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is home. Home with his parents. It’s Seollal and it’s a celebration he wouldn’t miss, wouldn’t want to miss. Sehun already took a few walks around the neighbourhood, already reported to the ajumma of the mart vis-à-vis his building how uni life was. His mom coddles him too, for it seems she’s still not used to making food for two people instead of three. That’s why Sehun received so many packages of banchan, but it’s different to eat them fresh, with them at the table. They seem happy, happier now that there isn’t any more friction between them caused by the pressure of the suneung, of getting that good grade. They’re proud of him.

His bed has his favourite sheets on, old and worn and Sehun spends most of his stay there in it. He’s not that far, basically at the edge of Seoul, yet that life, that place where Sehun’s okatapbang is feels as though it’s in another world entirely. And Baekhyeon too. Baekhyeon seems the farthest.

On the second day of Seollal, at midnight, Baekhyeon calls. Sehun runs from the chit chat with his parents in the kitchen and into his room to talk to him, to hear him better. “Sehun-ah!” Baekhyeon keeps chirping, too relucent, too sober, and Sehun is happy now, he notices, just to hear his voice. He’s somewhere outside. Sehun can pick up the loud rumble of the city in the background of his chanting. 

“What, hyeong?” Sehun responds, laughing.

Baekhyeon stops saying his name now. His breath comes heavy through the receiver. “I want to wish you things, you know. Like to be happy and stuff. All the New Year wishes, all that jazz, because Sehunnie deserves all the best.”  

This is what Baekhyeon does when he’s lonely, when he’s alone. He’s too nice. Sehun is touched, tremulous from this. Spoken so airily but weighing so much. But he hates it when Baekhyeon is in this mood, craving and wanting so much he’s fidgety, until the truth and the glee gets squeezed out of him.

“You too, hyeong. You deserve all the best too.”

“You couldn’t even bother to make up your own words,” Baekhyeon tsks. A honk rings at that moment, agreeing with him.

“You didn’t say much either, to be honest.” 

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s just live well.”

“I already started,” Sehun says. He’s living well. There is Baekhyeon in his life now. He’s living well.

“I didn’t yet. I’ll be starting in—“some noise, as though he’s taking the phone away from his ear, before he comes back, “In like thirty minutes. I’m meeting Taeyeon, and we’re going to gossip each other like the crazy exes that we are.” He titters, truthful, but tinged with sarcasm.

That’s what their relationship is like. Friends with a bit of a denser past. Sehun doesn’t doubt it’s going to be fun. He would feel a pang of hurt at that, except he really doesn’t want Baekhyeon to be alone. And his parents aren’t in the city either.

“I agree with her. You are crazy.”

Baekhyeon hums, museful. “Well, you’re not wrong.” Shuffling. “I have to get dressed now. Happy Seollal, Sehunnie. Come back soon,” he says, hasty, disordered. “Wanna be happy again.”

Sehun’s body seizes. “Bye, hyeong,” he manages, so late that he’s sure Baekhyeon didn’t even catch it.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun has a degree now, and after applying for a bunch of jobs, also has a hiring contract in front of him. It looks like an obituary, nondescript, like the ones in black and white newspapers that only the elderlies read.

Sehun is a product now. Sehun is useful now. He can make things that make money, he is qualified. 

And so, on a Monday, Sehun presents himself to work. He runs around all day, introducing himself to people, getting acknowledged with his desk – the one at the very bottom of the ladder, where all the fresh hopefuls sit. It takes a week for him to stop fumbling, and another to get used to this new routine.

 

 

 

 

 

By the end of spring, he is pleased, his whole family is pleased. As a young adult, with this education, with this level of skill, with this salary, he’s got everything he needs. He makes more than he hoped he would. His boss, his colleagues like him more than he thought they would. They get along well, work together well. He will be part of these statistics that appear in university ads – promising such careers to snotty high school students.

He has branched out his modelling opportunities too, starting with a shoot for an indie photographer that made bank when the exhibition opened, which caused a flood of innumerable artists wanting him for posing. A body and a face that can sell anything. He agreed to a handful of them. Learned more about the trade, earned a few more connections, more money. He’s one of the main models at 76MM now – only for the most important collections – his pictures huge and displayed in the busiest stores, streets. The brand prospers along with him.

He feels it too, in himself, all his bones having installed where they should, no more wobbliness, no more unsureness. He isn’t doing anything he doesn’t want to. What he has now doesn’t feel like a filler, like a necessary, arduous step to be taken in order to reach a certain life. This is the life. Everything is on track, picture perfect, as he wanted but never knew.

And then there is Baekhyeon.

There is Baekhyeon, back pressed to Sehun’s, as he’s kissing a woman, sewing a hand in her long hair.

He parts from her, turns around, and says something about getting another drink before he vanishes. Sehun is left with the woman. They’re standing under a spotlight and Sehun takes in the way she looks. Not her. Not really. But the smudges Baekhyeon left on her, his doing, the smeared gloss and saliva and a shy hickey on her neck and a parted mouth and it looks amazing – not her, but Baekhyeon’s doing.

“What does he taste like?” Sehun asks, loud enough, annoyed enough to be heard over the booming music. She’s too drunk to frown, to deem the question weird. She licks her lips - a short tongue, the tip barely reaching over the breadth of them. Baekhyeon probably did all the licking, all the tongue action. Sehun closes his eyes for a second.

“Good,” she says, with the tarnished voice of a breathless kiss. “He’s really good.” She licks them again.

Sehun asked. He was the one who asked. Why did he fucking ask goddammit –

Baekhyeon is back. He has a tall glass of something bright that is only half full. He’d assume he’s spilled half the drink on the way here, but he knows Baekhyeon is in fact seasoned enough to ask the bartender to simply pour the small drink in a bigger glass. “I have no idea what this is,” he shouts.

And Sehun doesn’t fucking know what’s up with this, with everything, with all this want swimming inside of him, clawing at him, so he takes it, thanks him, downs it, keeps on dancing, keeps on going, keeps on being there, next to Baekhyeon, close to Baekhyeon. He gets another drink and has the last dance of the with Baekhyeon, then they go home, sleep, and in the morning they will bond over hangovers in front of the pharmacy, sipping on herbal drinks.

 

 

 

 

 

He bumps into Yixing. The actual collision of their bodies before anything, the kiss before they introduce themselves.

It’s a name Sehun tries to moan, a name he tries to remember. Yixing is hot as fuck, a wicked accent on his tongue, sinuous hips, fleshy, open lips. And Sehun had felt the bare, mechanical attraction in addendum to loneliness and the pure horniness. They share impeccable, consuming kisses, grabbing and tugging at each other, and Sehun really really tries to moan, to take enough pleasure in this for a sound to be ripped out of him.

He feels Yixing up, listens to the whines he’s making. To Sehun’s ears, they’re in a mordant tone, his posture too, flat and dull and Sehun stops. He takes his leg away from in between Yixing’s thighs, stops him from rutting against him, stops kissing him, and instead lays his forehead on the wall behind Yixing.

His chest tightens and his eyes burn. Feels like crying. There are no tears. Yixing doesn’t slide away from under him, instead he pats his back. It’s the wrong spot and not entirely comfortable, but it does something, soothes him to be understood by a stranger who doesn’t even speak his language.

Sehun thanks him. That much he can do genuinely. Yixing grins before vanishing back into the mass of the club, and Sehun might not remember his name, but he will remember that smile. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun finds out Kyeongsu works in the same building as him, two floors lower, for the rival company. He glares at the badge clipped to Sehun’s shirt. 

“Hello, enemy,” he says. Sehun smiles. He really hasn’t seen Kyeongsu in so long, even though they text pretty often. Somehow, the topic of where they’re working hasn’t come up. All they chat about is bullshit and puppies.

He promptly drags Kyeongsu by the elbow to a table for their lunch break and they eat together and shamelessly share confidential intel about each other’s company. Sehun feels much better about his workplace now.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon likes going out. A lot. Sehun likes it too. And Baekhyeon takes him along, picks him up, walks with him, drinks with him, dances with him.

Yet it’s starting to irk him more and more, that by the time he’s back home, the next day, he regrets going out. As soon as he steps into the pitch of the club and Baekhyeon’s eyes begin their hunt, for fun, for love, for numbness, Sehun goes cold. Each song turns into a dirge. It drips into his ears, burns, like the wax of a candle.

Sehun refuses him today. Just once. Just this once. And then he’s home, all by himself, unable to sleep, mad with wonder about who Baekhyeon is taking home.

The next time Sehun says yes, lets Baekhyeon pick his shirt, his drink, the mouth to kiss.

And the next time too. And the next. It’s better than being alone, not knowing anything. It’s better being out at night, in the teeming crowd, and seeing Baekhyeon’s ravishing simper that feels like nothing but a fetter around Sehun. Keeps him there, with him, grounded, rooted, nailed in place. How could he even look at someone else. How could he even see.

He is perhaps as blind as Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning, half of him gets up, goes on living, the other half of him remains behind, in the sheets, where it can dream of Baekhyeon all it wants. It’s bearable, like this. Another day can pass.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun kisses women, makes out with women. What his dick enjoys, what his skin enjoys, and what his loneliness needs are all different from what he likes deep down. It’s a place he’s been in before, before he knew he liked men more, way more, before he knew being with someone shouldn’t feel this washed out, this uninteresting. His preference isn’t that black and white, but a grey that distinctly favours one side, to a degree where he wouldn’t call himself anything other than gay.

Even compared with the little experience he’s had with men, it’s a bland, bleached feeling, one he hasn’t missed, but it is something instead of nothing.

The motions of a mouth are similar. His eyes are closed, and his hands hungry. He can ignore the person, ignore the pair of breasts pressed to his chest. It’s all doable for the purpose of having a taste of belonging when he cannot have intimacy with the person he wants, with the person he cherishes. It feels better like this, less wrong, in fact, than if he were to do this with a man. He doesn’t wonder how Baekhyeon would feel against him when he’s working with unmistakeably feminine features, when the hips that push against him are so soft, when he the hair he tangles his hand in is so long. His mind doesn’t try to put Baekhyeon in her place.

Instead, he’s blank, unfeeling. A senselessness that he needs, combined with the faintest hint of gratification for pleasuring someone. Because she is responsive, she is moving against him, pressed close, kisses ardent – even though there is nothing else for himself in this.

He pulls away, when he’s had his fill, when he gets bored. He lets her down kindly, especially since she was the one who approached him. He finishes it off with an excuse of having to find his friend, which becomes a legitimate reason the moment he finishes saying it.

He searches through the club, and soon enough, he finds Baekhyeon in the restroom.

“Oh! Found you!” he chirps immediately, stepping into Sehun’s space.

He’s deboning Sehun with a single twitch of his eyebrow, a silky leer, and Sehun is already stumbling, needing to rest an arm on the sink counter to stabilize himself. He’s still looking at Sehun.

His lips are soiled by an unpleasurable kiss. Sehun rubs them with his sleeve. He cannot be in front of Baekhyeon like this, with the evidence of his throe all over himself. He forces on a happy face. In the mirror behind Baekhyeon, he sees his own grin – afoul, horrid. Taupe skin, like a cloth, threadbare, stained. The white light is unforgiving. He has the intention to recalibrate his expression, wipe it off his face, wipe himself off entirely, but right, Baekhyeon is blind. These pretty eyes are unseeing. They don’t see a thing. Sehun has no reason to hide himself.

And then, now, Baekhyeon says he’s craving chapssal donuts. Sehun is too gone right now to remember what these even are, but he agrees, of course, and goes, searches through the whole city for a place to sell them some at this hour. They find them at a supermarket, made fresh, since it’s close to daybreak.

They pluck them out of the box with skewers, sitting on the curb in the parking lot outside of the market. Sehun leans his head on Baekhyeon’s shoulder as they eat.

The sound of his munching is loud. The donuts are crispy, warm. Baekhyeon is happy with them, very much so. There is sugar on his lips, granular little constellations, and a smudge of red bean paste on his chin. A continuous hum of contentedness serenades in his chest.

Sehun’s mind is reeling. He wants to say, “I wanna kiss you.” Because there is no one else he wants to kiss, nothing else he wants to do. But not just say it, maybe, but actually do it. Kiss Baekhyeon’s neck, kiss his cheeks, his mouth, his everything. First by accident - of course not by accident, just not really free will, not reasonable will, for Sehun is way too in love to take a hold of himself anymore. Then do it again, because in his mind, in this illusion, Baekhyeon responds, likes the feeling of Sehun’s lips on his skin, asks for more.

Sehun gets as far as pressing his cheek to his neck, and Baekhyeon giggles, makes to push him away as if this is a mere tickling session, as if Sehun seeks to tease him instead of trying to confess his heart out. His lips are close to touching the skin when Baekhyeon gasps. “Look at the hour!” he says, staring at his phone.

There are two donuts left. He stuffs one whole in his mouth, then the other into Sehun’s. He steps on the box to fold it and tosses it in the nearby bin, then he grabs Sehun by his hand, smiles, cheek bulging round with the donut, and rushes them home, to Baekhyeon’s apartment. They tuck themselves under the sheets, in Baekhyeon’s bed, unshowered and giddy.

They’re both late for work.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun has toys.

He had an afternoon one time, cash, despair, and now he has metal plug, a vibrator and a bottle of lube in a brown box. The name of the brand on it is simply a ’ ;) ’. He rips it open.

Sehun plays with them. Sehun plays with himself. A few times in a row, experimenting, testing, until he finds himself face down into his pillow, ass up as his thighs tremble from the vibrations besetting his prostate. He tries it again, manages to offer himself three consecutive, dry orgasms.

He likes this. He does it often now, even when he’s not even turned on. To do something. To pamper and indulge himself somehow. To drain himself of all the energy and the thoughts. He does it every day. Twice. Thrice.

The plug is quite small. The widest part of it isn’t thicker than two of his fingers side by side. The sensation it gives is subtle, a little dash of something that doesn’t get him hard, but offers pleasing tingles each time he moves a certain way. He uses it at home, when he comes back from work, wears it around as he tidies up the place, as he cooks. Then he goes out with it. First just to the supermarket. Then he wears it to work for a short period of time.

And once, he has it in when he’s at Baekhyeon’s, eating pizza and watching some animated movie because Baekhyeon _loves_ them. He’s sprightly and really into it, and Sehun is too, for story-wise, humour-wise, it’s really good. Baekhyeon is giggling and his legs are dangling over Sehun’s shoulders as he’s the one on the floor, leaning against the couch. Occasionally, Baekhyeon is twisting strands of Sehun’s hair. He makes a few braids.

Sehun presses to go home instead of sleeping over as he normally would when they are doing something that stretches so deep into the night. Baekhyeon pouts and insists to give him taxi money.

“Text me when you arrive,” he shouts after him in the hallway.

At home, Sehun does just that before he takes his pants off, before he takes everything off and spreads himself out on the bed, tugging at his cock until he cries out and comes.

He’s breathing hard. Around him, the air is fetid, heavy, lead and woe. He doesn’t really feel like breathing it anymore.

He’s not doing himself any favour with this. Fucking himself every day until it hurts isn’t going to solve anything.

Sehun gets up, washes the toys and puts them back in the box they came in before he takes a long, cold shower.

 

 

 

 

 

Jongin is a shy little bean. He has a smile that kills as much as it heals, and amazing legs. That’s Jongin. Sehun would like to love him instead. Would like to love anyone else instead, if no one at all.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m here too,” Sehun says, inebriated, limp, tired, frank, outside of the club. He meant to maybe say more, but this is all that comes out. _You can look at me too. You can see me too. I’m right here._

Baekhyeon is sturdy – can hold Sehun while he’s leaning on him, hugging him from behind, suffocating him with his yearning and this shitty, subpar quarter-confession.

“Couldn’t have forgotten about you anyways,” replies Baekhyeon, patting the hand Sehun has over his chest. A pellucid sensuality to his enunciation. He’s not out of character yet.

There is a car in front of them. Sehun sees his face reflected in the window, peeking over Baekhyeon’s shoulder. A fervid cerise is inked on his cheeks, dispersing through the rest of his face, to his heart, warm and caustic and cruel.

“Don’t say things like that to me,” Sehun responds. Baekhyeon’s words stick to his ear like glue, gloopy, gorgeous, his touch too. “It’ll hurt.” And then there is an intermezzo, coldness, aloneness, Sehun left alone to wander through the city on his unsteady legs, looking for a home, his home. That rooftop nest where he is safe.

Sehun is home and sleeps, and for once, doesn’t dream.

 

 

 

 

 

On rare days, Mina is absolutely ecstatic. She has no idea what causes it either, but it happens, and everyone is happy. It coincidences with the bulk of the shoots for the new season. Jongin already did a bunch of solos – there’s glitter involved now. Jongin is preening when all Mina has for him is laud.

Sehun is asked to do a few nude shots. That makes no sense for a clothing company, but apparently there is some ambiguous concept behind this that will make it work. Sehun poses nude, in one of these pretzeled up positions that would still make the pictures PG enough to be posted in public. Angle and light tricks are also involved. Mina nearly drops her camera just to clap when it’s over.

Later, Jongin is brought to the set, nude too. There are a few curtains arranged, draped over the light panels, so wispy, patterned shadows fall on their naked skin. They’re made to meld, cover themselves with one another, tip heads back and tense wrists. Sehun’s hand in on Jongin’s thigh.

“Inner,” Mina says, her maw wiped clean of pink in the centre by the straw of her coffee. Sehun obliges, moves a fraction. “More inner,” Mina says again.

Sehun obliges this too, his whole palm dipping between Jongin’s legs so much so that the tips of his fingers touch his ass. He applies only enough pressure for the flesh of it to dip under his palm, for a shadow to line where he is touching.

“Yes, like that,” groans Mina, the shutter clicking frantically.

All of their poses end up like this. Edging on homoerotic, but not passing. Not with the disinterest their faces are ordered to show. Sehun can be this close to Jongin, this naked with him, and not lose a crumb of professionalism.

They’re both given a robe at the end and they rush to the main computer as they’re curious how this session turned out. It’s strange for Mina to be this satisfied.

What he sees are just two bodies, lighting artifices, and a striking voluptuousness.

Close-ups of Sehun’s hands, on Jongin, and Jongin over him, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, thighs crossed, chins tilted towards each other’s. Gorgeous shots.

Sehun feels a bitterness in his mouth, a recoil at himself, a dirtiness, as though he’s betrayed someone with this.

 And that’s daunting because Sehun doesn’t belong to anyone, he isn’t—

 

 

 

 

 

This is not normal. There are no butterflies in his stomach. There are worms, vermins. They won’t become butterflies, or morph into anything pretty and delicate. Not until Baekhyeon sees him perhaps. The coagulation squirms and squirms around in his viscera, prickles and aches. So far, liking, loving, adoring Baekhyeon has been nothing but unpleasant. It’s comparable to a malady, to a parasite, to something that he wishes there was a pill for. A pesticide. An antitoxin. Or another heart, another body to cure it with.

Sehun tries to fall for someone else. He signs up on dating sites, plays coy with a few colleagues. Looks around. Asks around. Schedules a few blind dates that he never makes it to. Sehun really tries.

It doesn’t work.

Baekhyeon invites himself over, they dye their hair again, it ends up uneven but still nice. They will own up to their messy, shittilly bleached mistakes. Then they mingle in front of Sehun’s laptop watching dramas.

Baekhyeon’s hand falls onto Sehun’s chest.

He has no idea what’s behind that skin, behind that ribcage. Sehun laughs, because this is a romantic comedy, and because Baekhyeon is here, pressed to him, and Sehun is happy.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun’s pulled out of his sleep. There are dogs howling outside, and then the rattle of his phone on the floor. A buzz, another one, a third one, a caterwaul.

It’s close to sunrise, and Baekhyeon is texting him. Sehun only opens his eyes, without really waking up, and reaches for it. 10 texts.

First, picture of his hand, one that he took probably before he left, so he remembers how many rings he had on. And then. Exclamation mark. A drunken bear. A sleepy bear. Nonsense. And then.

_Wish you were with me tonight_

Sehun never replies to these texts. He wakes up for them every time, but he has no intention to respond. He doesn’t have to, doesn’t want to.

He bites his lip. A piece of dry skin rips off.

Baekhyeon would’ve said something by now if he caught any glimpse of the feelings Sehun is harbouring. There isn’t anything Baekhyeon doesn’t say when he’s all tired out, the alcohol almost out of his system by the end of the night, and he’s sleepy and buzzy and his mouth so easy, so honest.

He never said anything that could give Sehun any hope. And he’s heard how forward he can be, articulated but suave, in response to someone displaying attraction to him. Nothing of the sort ever happened to Sehun.

But now, if Sehun asks, Baekhyeon wouldn’t lie to him, wouldn’t avoid answering—

 _Sehuniaaaaa_ comes another message.

Sehun freezes, bites his lip again, and wakes the fuck up.

_Why_

That’s all he wants to know.

_Oh! Sehunnie replied!!!!_

Party hat.

_More fun_

Bubbles of typing appear, disappear, slosh around like the nerves in Sehun’s stomach.

_Wasn’t fun at all without u actually_

_It’s never fun without u_

_Nothing is ever fun without u_

Sad face _._

And Sehun…Sehun isn’t really even fun. He can dance and bump into people and splutter bullshit, but—

 _Why,_ he wants to inquire again, but more bubbles appear, disappear, then in their wake remain words that Sehun tries with all his might not to cling to.

_I wanted to see u_

_I miss u?_

_I always miss u?_

A shy character hiding behind hands.

He wants to see Sehun. He misses Sehun. Things aren’t fun without Sehun.

Sehun matters. Not like that. Maybe he will never matter like that. But Baekhyeon cares about him.

Right now, Sehun is content just with that.

_Tomorrow, hyeong_

Sehun sleeps.

 

 

 

 

 

He does see Baekhyeon the next day. They don’t skip the tradition just because one variable went awry this time.

Baekhyeon asks to meet in front of his favourite bakery. His skin appears tired, but his mood is jolly.

“Sorry for waking you!” he says, first and foremost and loud and wholehearted.

Sehun wants to hug him. Sehun wants to hug him _so_ bad. And tell him that he missed him too. That he wanted to see him too. That he matters, _so much_ , to him too.

“I’ll forgive you if you feed me.”

Baekhyeon pinches his hip but swiftly complies.

 

 

 

 

 

“Is it me? The reason you’re still single?”

Spoken sedately over the din of paper scratching.

When Sehun understands, he takes another sip of his mug of tea before he puts it down, and looks over the table at Baekhyeon.

A cirrus of copper hair falling over his forehead as he leans forward. It’s the margin of summer, hot already. Perspiration. Baekhyeon is wearing less and less, sheerer and sheerer. His collarbones show.

He’s sketching as he asks Sehun about his soul, about the seed of his torment. It’s of an indifference that is nearly laughable.

And it’s not fair. Not fair at all.

“I mean,” continues Baekhyeon not even a few seconds later. “You never say anything about any woman. And I know for a fact you have _plenty_ after you.” A pause, not for his words, but so he can assess his work. He goes back to drawing. “I spend so much time with you. I’m afraid I’m stealing you from a love life.”

So he isn’t seeing anything. He hasn’t caught Sehun. It’s not about that.

Sehun’s trepidation subsides. He wraps his palms around the mug of tea and brings it close to inhale the waning vapours of jasmine.

Baekhyeon talks when he’s drawing. It’s a mind numbing activity for him. Most of his past, most of his worries, most of his curiosities, Sehun found them out through a dainty, blank voice as Baekhyeon sketched.

There isn’t any more weight to this as there has been to the other queries.

“Nah, hyeong,” responds Sehun. He takes a sip of the tea to wash off the bitter taste of how _true_ his statement is.

Baekhyeon looks up. Only eyes, a dip of his pupils into the hem of his upper lashes, and nothing else. The blinds in this café are doily-like, tattering the light, and it so happens that one of his irises appears the brightest gold while the other one is of an unending black.

Sehun has a hard time finding his words facing this sight. “I just don’t need things like these,” he murmurs. He quickly takes another gulp of tea. This time he has a lie to wash down.

Baekhyeon puts down the pencil. A pout appears on his lips. His gaze remains thoughtful. These two together tell Sehun that he is surprised by his answer. Baekhyeon, who is always searching, running, doing anything to not be alone.

Sehun nearly opens his mouth to go on. To spill everything. To tell him that he doesn’t need anyone else, not a relationship, not casual sex, because he is content with Baekhyeon’s presence in his life.

But Baekhyeon is just then reaching over to take a mug from him and take a sip before he gives it back. “Cute,” he says, picking up his pencil. An uncharacteristic tone. Baekhyeon goes back to sketching. Sehun replays that word in his mind, tries to place the nuance of it, and at last, he can only say that Baekhyeon sounds impressed.

Sehun has to supress himself from letting out a laugh overflowing with self-pity. _If only he knew._

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon’s hand, light, just the pure weight of it, anointing the flesh along Sehun’s hip. He’s sore from the gym, and it hurts so good to be massaged.

They’re at Sehun’s, on the floor, watching a drama.

It’s a distrait act, light, but also effective enough that Sehun purrs, lets it consume him, and turns his head to hide into Baekhyeon’s neck, the drama forgotten. He’s wearing one of Sehun’s shirts, thin and ravelled, collar loose. Sehun is sleepy and pleased.

“You’re so hard,” Baekhyeon says, rugged. He clears his throat – there’s been a lot of silence between them. He probes harder around Sehun’s waist. He’s touched him like this before, but not really like this, not under clothes, not so meticulous. There is an otherness to this action that is startling.

Baekhyeon looks at him for a second. There is barely any light, only the low, shifting glare coming from the laptop, but it’s enough for Sehun to see the shadowing of his lashes under his cheeks and the laxity of his lips. He’s _staring_ at Sehun’s body, where his shirt has ridden up on his side, exposing him from hip to chest, and a good part of his stomach. Baekhyeon can see, by the waver of his thorax, the ripples on the skin, how irregular his breathing is. Sehun tenses at the realization. The lines of his stomach become pronounced, deep.

Baekhyeon’s hand slides across the skin, palm over the risen shapes, fingers splayed wide, until he reaches the other side, at the stripes of his oblique. He goes lower then, the same kind of glide, with pressure to it, before his thumb slots in the delimitation of his Adonis belt. He follows it, his other fingers curled too, tips on the other side of the muscle, and he descends, descends, until the nail of his thumb reaches the waistband of Sehun’s sweats.

“I worked hard for it,” Sehun says, ripped by a bout of panic.

Baekhyeon’s hand stills. He stills entirely. From the screen, red flashes on his face, fades into a blue, a yellow, before he removes his hand. An imprint of warmth is left behind. It seethes as it cools.

Baekhyeon snaps out of it, grabs his shirt and tugs it down. “You really did,” he says. He’s still staring there, even though the skin is covered. He grins, then lastly, looks at him. “You’re always breaking yourself at the gym.”

Sehun shifts away from him, shifts away from the crook of his neck when the action seems to pick up in the drama. It’s better like this, as he can curl into himself, and hide his arousal. He’s looking at the screen, yet all he sees is how Baekhyeon’s hand looked spread out on his abdomen like that. Spindly fingers. The movement. The warmth. It’s happened before for him to get turned on by the most insignificant gesture from Baekhyeon, but it was never this strong, this immediate, and never when he was so close.

Baekhyeon’s chin climbs up his shoulder. A moment later, his head is next to Sehun’s. Sehun breathes in deep, stagnant, counts forward, counts backward, waiting to get desensitized to the way Baekhyeon’s body feels pressed against his from behind.

But Baekhyeon _is_ fiddly, he has to have something to do with his hands, and truly, Sehun isn’t surprised when his palm creeps slowly down to his thigh. Something is happening in the drama. Baekhyeon is focused on that, totally oblivious to his own actions. Just as absently, his fingers dig, and it _hurts_ , for Sehun is sore there too, but mostly, it kindles, has another hot flash of arousal festering low in his belly and spreading and sibilating and Sehun groans and shivers and pulls the fuck away, goes away. Puts space between them and curls up and stares at the drama, without seeing anything.

“Sorry,” Baekhyeon says in a feeble tone.

Sehun hates the sound of that more than he hates his reaction to Baekhyeon’s touches. He doesn’t say anything.

 

 

 

 

 

Granules of salt the tip of his tongue, the very edge, gleaming like little crystals on the expanse of pinkness. Wet. The drag of his tongue back inside is slow, and the sight of it is instantly covered by the shot glass, then by the wedge of lemon.

Sehun become unresponsive. He can’t _see_ this. Baekhyeon can’t just—

He takes Sehun’s hand and sprinkles salt on it. He’s holding another shot of tequila. Okay. Sehun needs to get drunk, has to get drunk, has to take all the salt and sizzle and sizzle from the burn. It will be better than watching Baekhyeon anyway.

Yet still, by the time they have to go home, the image still isn’t out of Sehun’s head. He’s made out with someone, maybe two someone’s throughout the night, and it did nothing to rid him of the thought.

It really shouldn’t start like this. Or end. But instead of I love you, Sehun says “Wanna kiss you,” as he falls into Baekhyeon. Bites his lip, as he always does when he thinks this, when he wants this, obsessively, dearly. “All the time.”

Because all the time. All the time. There are minor things happening to him, life, days, work and happiness and food and movies and doing laundry and above all this, beyond all this, Sehun wants Baekhyeon. A kiss from him. A grin. A jab at his ribs. A tug at his ear. Him entirely. He’s quite tiny too, even though his presence huge.

He looks down, at Baekhyeon, barely reaching his shoulder, a small, small parted mouth and the gentlest, cutest eyes, and he’s so tiny really, Sehun doesn’t even want that much. Baekhyeon is small, compact, a small little bottle with the cutest ass for the strongest elixir that right now, tonight, in this life, Sehun feels like he cannot live without anymore.

There is no background to this anymore. No subtext. Sehun doesn’t register a thing beside the words, the feel, the sinuation, the ache of his tongue hitting his teeth as he says it. Not how he got there, where, where this is even happening. How old he is. Whether it’s night or day.

He’s just in love and drunk. And _Baekhyeon_.

Baekhyeon takes a look at him, then bursts out laughing. He hugs Sehun, offers his body for support, says, “Let’s get you home.” It’s rare, so rare that Sehun gets this shitfaced, so drunk out of his mind that he cannot even stand. Baekhyeon is both endeared and alarmed.

Sehun wants to tell him not to laugh at this. He wants to say it again, make Baekhyeon listen to him, and believe it. Sehun wants to kiss his little, curled mouth so much. But he’s too tired to do that. Too spent. He wraps himself around Baekhyeon and waits with him for their taxi to arrive. He keeps leaning into him, his ear to his shoulder, as Baekhyeon heatedly bargains with the driver about the fare, for they are quite far from both their places.

Sehun doesn’t think about anything anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

There are things Sehun wishes to unlive.

There are things Sehun wishes are gone, not for what they mean, but for how much they come back for him, show him montage after montage of memories that leave him black and blue.

Baekhyeon looks at him, tugs at him, gently, kindly and there it is, another eruption of plum, deep, painful, all over his flesh and his bones. It’s still Baekhyeon the one who takes care of the bruises, gets him out, feeds him, delights him, grins and grins and grins and faced with that, Sehun is dizzy and pliant. So he goes, always, follows Baekhyeon, always. What else can he do when Baekhyeon is holding onto him like this, like his life can’t go on without Sehun by his side.

 

 

 

 

 

He does a double take. A triple take. He stops blinking entirely as a gasp spills past his lips.

“Fuck, hyeong, people need their hearts to live you can’t just go out looking like this snatching them all,” he rushes out, and he doesn’t even know how all these words came together in his mind, how he even thought this whole thing, where he even found enough air to say it.

Baekhyeon’s always looked good. Baekhyeon always looked put together. It can’t be _just_ the clothes that have Sehun’s chest stuttering like this. There is nothing inherently seductive about them, but to Sehun—

He’s wearing white pants, ripped, and all too tight, but the rips are at the back, going from his knee until halfway up the back of his thighs. The curves of the muscle are visible, diminishing, softening higher up, until there is the tapering under his butt. It’s a rare trait, this one. It’s the kind of butt that has no crease prefacing it, but a pretty, rising slope that passes right to the swell of it.

This is what he sees before Baekhyeon turns. And then, a lip ring. A fucking lip ring. A ribbon of metal going over the middle of his lower lip, where it is fullest, pinkest. There’s a chain linked to it, as slim as a thread of spider web, that is at last clipped to the collar of his shirt. Cropped shirt. Two windows on either side of the buttons stripe, baring the length of his collarbones till his shoulders.

It’s a peculiar combination, peculiar items. There is very little skin shown, but also not something Sehun would see otherwise.

Or maybe it’s his mood, the radiant smile he’s wearing, and not the clothes. There’s a devastating sunniness to him today.

Sehun finally catches up with what his mouth spouted just a few moments ago and tries to look away.

Silence. Baekhyeon gapes. He catches Jongin, half buried in a book while he is having his hair done, poke his head, and look over at them, one of his eyes lined, the other bare, giving him a shocked glance.

Baekhyeon blushes then. Perhaps, perchance. It might be a trick of the light, of his own eyes, or wishful thinking. His mind supplies the rest, like this is a reality TV show and two perfectly round dots of red are placed on his cheeks along with some cutesy commentary. Baekhyeon is blushing, perhaps, perchance, at Sehun complimenting him like this. It’s dizzying, and Sehun is drunk enough on his own feelings as it is.

The teeny, furtive concavities appear low on his cheeks, about his mouth, when a smile that is unsure of itself stretches on his face, barely bared teeth and a curled, semi-pouting lip tugged a bit higher on one side. Modus operandi of Baekhyeon’s conflicted happiness. Sehun is aware of it, too much so, perhaps.

“You’re fine though,” he says suddenly, picking up a file from the vanity next to Sehun’s, and Sehun can’t even choke that no, no he’s not fine, and he hasn’t been for a while.

Baekhyeon comes forward and places his hand on Sehun’s chest, on the left side, and rests it there for a fraction. His heart begins booming and spasming the moment the contact is made, picking up an even faster rhythm. Sehun feels like throwing up. “Yep, still there,” he mutters, grinning. In the mirror, he sees Baekhyeon looking at Jongin. “Yours is fine too, isn’t it, Jonginnie?”

Jongin blinks before he lays a hand over his chest to check. “Yes, hyeong, it didn’t go anywhere,” he says quietly.

Baekhyeon claps. “Told you,” he says, then ruffles up Sehun’s hair just because he can, because it isn’t styled yet, and prances out.

 “He’s a little shit,” Sehun speaks after a while, when he finds his voice again. He watches himself in the mirror as he says it. He looks void.

“You have it so bad,” Jongin says. Instead of teasing, it sounds regretful. Sehun winces.

“But how can I not when he’s so—“ Sehun feels like faceplanting on the counter. Sehun feels like faceplanting with his whole body. The coordi wouldn’t be too happy.

Jongin drags his chair closer to Sehun’s. The way he peers at Sehun is grave. “I’ll save you from him,” he says. “ _Somehow_ ,” he emphasizes at Sehun’s raised eyebrows. “If you need it.”

Why is Jongin so nice.

“Maybe,” is all Sehun says. Maybe, is all he thinks. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is hiding into Baekhyeon’s neck, because when isn’t he. It’s dark here. Baekhyeon can’t see him here. The skin is smooth and subtly scented and Sehun really likes it here.

His shirt has a few buttons undone. The bowtie that was once around his collar is now tied to his wrist. Sehun is in pyjamas. They’re comfortable like this, the both of them lounging out in Sehun’s bed, heads propped on the pillows stacked against the wall. Sehun noses deeper into the valley of his neck, feeling the faint pulse, as Baekhyeon is looking through some photographs on his tablet. He stares a lot at them. Sehun can’t see what he sees in them, and why they need to be scrutinized for so long. It’s a Baekhyeon thing.

Sehun is easily on the verge of falling asleep after he sees the nth photo looking about the same as the other ones. His eyes are heavy and his mind unfocused. He really doesn’t afford to fall asleep now though. He has to go to the gym soon. He sighs, tries to knock a bit of wakefulness into himself.

Baekhyeon makes a small sound, twitches as he shies away a fraction. Sehun sighs again, just to tickle him, run his nose softly along the skin too, and Baekhyeon tenses and giggles before he makes to push him away. Sehun chases him, blows down his neck and Baekhyeon titters again, stirring, but he refuses to do more, to egg him on. Sehun perseveres, employs a hand to poke at Baekhyeon’s side. His arm jerks, flattens to Sehun’s chest to push him away, all the while he quivers with barely contained laughter.

It builds up until Sehun is tickling him everywhere and Baekhyeon cracks, puts the tablet away, and turns to fight Sehun off. He immobilizes him by clambering on top of Sehun, catching his arms and crossing them on Sehun’s stomach before he bends down to fit his face in the juncture of Sehun’s neck. He’s still laughing, laughing and seeking to give Sehun the same treatment he’s received, blowing ample, warm breaths into his neck and nuzzling into the skin until Sehun is tremulant with glee as well. He can’t throw him off, can’t take his hands out of Baekhyeon’s hold. His weight on top of Sehun renders him helpless. He’s tickling Sehun with all he’s got, mirth intertwined with all these noises of triumph at winning over Sehun. He’s close enough that his lips touch, touch Sehun’s pulse point, three times in quick succession from Sehun’s thrashing and he freezes, moans, balmy and sudden, ripped straight out of him, involuntary and all too pleased from the sudden effervescence gliding down his spine. Baekhyeon is giggling, cheeky and breathless when he pulls away, eyes glittering and Sehun is so done, so fucking done with fucking everything.

“I can’t believe how much I like you. Fuck. How can I like you this much, it’s—“

There are all the pants cutting the words, and all the frustration, that he barely registers what he’s saying. All the feelings are overbrimming now, have reached a point where he feels them seeping out through the gaps between the chalky bars of his ribs, sear and char and artlessly spume over. Baekhyeon’s hands are on him. The pretty hands. They’re now dirty with the scum of Sehun’s affection.

But Baekhyeon is staring, stunned, flushed, _beautiful_. That damn confession that has worn him to the ground, here it is, stolen by his sleepiness and Baekhyeon’s giggles. So easy.

Sehun opens his mouth, to add to that, to rectify it, something – but he can’t. He’s timorous and bound, focused on what’s left behind on Baekhyeon’s face as the surprise washes off. It begins with saccades, short, crisp, as he peers down at Sehun, searching, digging.

“So you weren’t kidding a few nights ago,” he begins. “When you said that you wanted to...” There is still laughter in his voice, residual from just a few seconds before when they were tickling each other and everything was _fine_. It feels as though a few aeons passed since then.

“No. I wasn’t.”

Baekhyeon swallows. The palm he has on Sehun’s neck slides away, away from him entirely, and settles on the mattress beside him. Sehun beseeches for an answer, a reaction - words or a touch or a gesture. But all he gets is tension, as Sehun expected to happen, and hoped it wouldn’t.

“Do you want to finish what you stated or—“ Baekhyeon asks, at last. It’s his tempered voice, anodyne, now devoid of everything else but care. He doesn’t misconstrue Sehun’s words. Gets them, understands them, still breathing over Sehun’s face, sweet and maddening.

“Hyeong,” Sehun starts, pleads. “I like you. A lot. I more than like you.” Words his mind said a million times, and his tongue only now get to taste.

“As a man,” Baekhyeon says, after a few more agonising breaths. It’s an affirmation, spoken in a whisper, even if his eyes are questioning, they’re not questioning _that_. He just can’t lose anything to semantics.

“Yes.”

And then, it all drops, slides off his face like a silk sheet, his face smoothening, losing all strain. Sehun can feel his thighs, from how they are pressed to his sides, relaxing. “I have to go,” he starts with, the kindest tone. “I’ll leave now so I get to the meeting in time,” he continues. It allays the panic that started running through Sehun, because he doesn’t want Baekhyeon to run away, to ever run away from him. “This bastard really scheduled a meeting at 6,” he says, upset.  He is the bastard. Baekhyeon is the one who scheduled that meeting, Sehun knows. “So I’ll go. But I want you to know that I heard you. And I’ll think about it. I’ll think about you. Okay?”

An earnest okay. He’s asking permission nearly, as though Sehun’s confession can keep him here, tie him to this place and to this moment.

“Okay.”

Baekhyeon swallows, but nods, finally slides off him. The rub of their clothes, Baekhyeon’s slacks on Sehun’s sweats, scratches at his ears. But Baekhyeon smiles at him, tumultuous, but still a smile, and Sehun can do nothing but do the same, as hesitant as it is.

He has his shoes on now, tied perfectly, before he remembers that he’s left his keys on the bedside table. Sehun is still in bed, and he doesn’t want to leave it. Baekhyeon makes grabby hands and moues and whines him to throw them, which Sehun does, when he can’t resist Baekhyeon’s puppy face anymore. Baekhyeon doesn’t catch them. He’s utterly affronted. Then he grins anyway, waves and leaves.

Quiet, as it was before he came over. The same exact silence, and yet Sehun can hear himself breathing, can feel himself breathing. Finally.

 

 

 

 

 

“I can see it now,” Baekhyeon says, over coffee, under a night sky and the brittle light of a street lamp, a few days later. 

The darkness smokes everything out. The colours and the lineaments are gritty.

Yet Sehun still witnesses, with an arrestive clarity, the shift from Baekhyeon’s blindness to seeing. Truly seeing. The erasure of the gauzy lustre, fading and fading until it’s replaced with limpidity, brightness, a splatter of auburn weaving into his irises, pushed to the edge by the dilation of his pupils. He _sees_ now.

He sees Sehun, and the adulation that his own eyes are sodden with. All the adulation he has for Baekhyeon. All of it.

“You’ve always looked at me like this.”

Could’ve been a forgettery, wiped out clean. He could have pretended Sehun never said anything. But it’s Baekhyeon, and he remembers, cares.

Sehun takes a few more steps, with Baekhyeon along, until they’re out of the curtain of light. The street is familiar, the taste of the coffee is familiar, Baekhyeon, beside him, always, is familiar. They take this kind of stroll sometimes, sipping tiny sips of a meagre vending machine coffee, late evening, right after the work hours. It’s to wake them up a bit, give them a small burst of energy to live a little, while it doesn’t inhibit their sleep.

Familiar, everything, even the feeling in Sehun’s chest. Yet he’s never been more nervous, more disjoined, as though he’s living someone else’s life right now. He downs the rest of the plastic cup. There’s undissolved sugar at the bottom, as murky as his mind.

He glances at Baekhyeon. “Is it a good look on me?”

When he can’t push anything, he feels, not inquire more, cannot be forcible. Don’t ask him to respond, to place any sort of a new label on Sehun, switch his stance on him. Sehun doesn’t want an answer to that anyway. All he wants is for Baekhyeon to still be around, no matter in what way he loves him, if he does at all.

This small question is still charged, but Baekhyeon can think in these terms. He can tell Sehun whether being in love looks awful on him or not.

Baekhyeon’s eyes narrow, pinch at the corners. The rest of his face is collapses. It’s an expression Sehun hasn’t seen before.

“You’re beautiful enough that everything looks good on you,” he says. It doesn’t sound like he wanted to say this at all.

Sehun goes back in time for a second. To that point in his life when he didn’t know Baekhyeon, didn’t know his gestures and his tones and his preferences. Before the tangents. The random, tiny meetings, somewhat stringed, puppeteer by fate perhaps, or by something identically unseen and uncontrollable.

What Sehun was then - a carcass of a person - and who he is now, settled, grown, 23, and servile to Baekhyeon to the bone, 26 and gorgeous.

Still, Sehun is glad that it happened. He’s glad that he’s met Baekhyeon. 

The stroll, usually, ends here, at this corner of the street, where a little lawn gnome sits in a square of trimmed grass on the side of the road. They halt. Sehun fiddles with the cup still in his hand, swirling the slush left in it. Absent, voiceless.

“Would you have told me that day if I didn’t— “

The last word lags.

He doesn’t know what he did, exactly, to make Sehun confess. Sehun doesn’t either. There was nothing notable about Baekhyeon laughing and tickling him. It’s something he’s always done.

Sehun fights with the astringent taste in his mouth. “No,” he says. He never wanted to do that. He doesn’t regret it now, but he also believes even more, after the deed is done, and sees where brought them, what damage it seems to have done, that he should have been silent. “But I would have cracked at some point anyway.”

“So not…willingly.” That pause is abyssal.

“No.”

There’s a medley of things that can go wrong with Baekhyeon knowing. Baekhyeon perhaps thinking Sehun only stuck with him in hopes of getting into his pants, that what he’s had with Sehun was a shallow, manipulative friendship. A harsher response to knowing Sehun likes men, to thinking that he’s only touched him to get off on it, to realize that maybe all the hugs Sehun had given him had an ill intention behind them.

Sehun’s pondering went there for the simple reason that he suspected himself of this behaviour. He did think that maybe he’s only stuck around to get him. Be so nice to Baekhyeon, that at last, at some point, he _deserved_ his affections returned. Baekhyeon owed him love. Especially after being so touchy with him, so caring, so close. Like he led him on. He even entertained the thought that maybe Baekhyeon knew, he was aware – if nothing else gave it away, surely that slip of him blurting about wanting kissing him did - maybe he caught him hard, caught him staring. Maybe he knew all along and he still played with Sehun afterwards, curled up with him to sleep and took him everywhere.

And the last point - if Baekhyeon doesn’t like men, there is _nothing_ that can be done about that. And he’s never given Sehun a reason to believe he might swerve into that lane.

“No,” Sehun says again, stopping thinking, stopping revisiting the turmoil of possibilities that he’s carried around for so long. It’s all out of his control now. All he had control over was his confession, and he lost that too. No point letting all these venomous thoughts gnaw at him anymore. “I wouldn’t have told you.”

On this deserted street, there is just the three of them, Sehun, Baekhyeon, and the smiling gnome.

“Let me walk you home,” he says to Baekhyeon, who is idle, but listening.

He doesn’t seem to find any answer.

He doesn’t have to, though. Sehun doesn’t want an answer from him - he just wants to walk him home.

Baekhyeon nods, mechanical. Sehun takes the first step back in the direction they came from, and Baekhyeon follows behind him, taciturn.  It’s the same pace they had before, the same distance between them. Sehun feels as he always feels when he walks with Baekhyeon – at peace – and that, he believes, will not change any time soon.

“I’m glad though, that you told me,” Baekhyeon says. His arm is aligned with Sehun’s. A stripe of warmth seeps through his shirt.

They’re in front of Baekhyeon’s building.

“Why?”

“Because who knows how for long I would have been oblivious to it if you didn’t.”

It’s the first time he looks down at Baekhyeon and sees him _small_. Sees him lower. Might be an illusion given by his posture, and the shattery timbre of his voice.

“And maybe hurt you,” he finishes.

Very many things hurt, to a level that it’s an everlasting pain. When Baekhyeon touches him and when he doesn’t. When he speaks to him and when he doesn’t. All the little proofs that Baekhyeon will never be his, all the little proofs that Baekhyeon _is_ already his, in a way. He despises the sight of a Baekhyeon longing for love as much as he despises seeing him take someone else into his embrace. Attention is as bad as no attention.

Baekhyeon’s behaviour cannot be tailored around this – it would mean to constrict him completely. Place him in a pretty little birdcage. This isn’t doable, nor desirable.

Sehun finds himself scoffing, amused. “It doesn’t matter if you do,” he says. He inhales, instead of sighing, and through all the grime in the air, there is a touch of Baekhyeon’s cologne. Flowery. His favourite.

He’s restless now, suddenly. Might be from the coffee. His body aches, as though atrophied. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

“What? Sehun—“

“I’m gonna go now, hyeong. Good night,” he waves, smiles too, because at least this he can always do, part ways with Baekhyeon smiling. He doesn’t hear Baekhyeon’s response, for he turns on his feet and begins running home.

He doesn’t stay there more than a few seconds. He only grabs his gym bag and goes down to work himself until everything burns, until every part of him is close to dissolution. 

Then he crashes into a deep slumber.

 

 

 

 

 

There was distance between them for a few days. For more than a week actually, now that Sehun looks back on it. Baekhyeon isn’t touching him less, isn’t talking to him less, but it’s less comfortable. Sehun can see Baekhyeon premeasuring his every action before interacting with Sehun. But his warmth is the same. And his playfulness.

Tonight, Baekhyeon trailed after him home. They had a sloppy dinner that ended with a dozen choco pies.

Baekhyeon didn’t leave afterwards.

They’re watching a drama, side by side but far apart on a blanket in front of the TV. It lasts for half an episode, and in a lull, when nothing is happening and a dramatic ballad plays, Baekhyeon sighs, long and sonorous, before he twists closer and snuggles up to Sehun.

“This is better,” he murmurs, chin over Sehun’s shoulder.

Sehun lets out a heavy breath too – he misses this, _him_ , so much. He wiggles around until he finds his place, curled up with Baekhyeon perfectly. His heart still races, de rigueur mayhem inside his chest, but he’s content, restful with Baekhyeon next to him. This is how it should be.

The episode ends with the two main characters kissing. Sehun turns off the TV before the preview comes on.

“Do I like you, Sehunnie,” Baekhyeon says before the static of the love song peters out. No uptalk. It’s not a question. Just words for himself.

He’s still picking at Sehun, at his clothes, infinitesimal motions of his fingers. It’s different from how he’s touched Sehun the past few days - weighty and fickle and fraught with unsureness. Sehun turns from his side and onto his back, facing Baekhyeon. He’s not wearing a button shirt, but one that is akin to a tee, a wide collar that bares the entirety of his collarbones but doesn’t dip to his chest. Sehun wants to go to his place. Sehun _really_ wants to hide into Baekhyeon’s neck. Instead he extends his arm, snakes it under Baekhyeon’s nape and arches it to get him closer. Baekhyeon’s ear is resting on his chest. Sehun gets a whiff of his hair. Roses. 

“You can’t tell if you like me?” asks Sehun, voice small. He wishes Baekhyeon doesn’t answer. He wishes this isn’t the end.

Baekhyeon’s hand stops patting over the side of Sehun’s ribs. He keeps still for a while. He must be tired. Sehun hopes the sound of his heartbeat isn’t too loud.

“I can’t. Not now.” He resumes his tickling.

Something dismantles within Sehun, turns into dust. It’s a sensation that doesn’t have an emotion attached to it. Sehun rubs at Baekhyeon’s shoulder, tries to forget about himself. Tries to not think about anything.

“Are you okay though?”

A laugh. “Yeah. Your tiddies make great pillows. I’m comfy.”

“Tiddies,” recites Sehun with a scoff. A blush scorches on his cheeks. He tenses involuntarily. The contraction of his pectoral is strong enough that Baekhyeon’s head moves with it. He yelps, hand descending to clutch at Sehun’s hip in reprimand.

He doesn’t speak anymore. Doesn’t ask anything anymore. He stares up at the ceiling. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness enough that he can discern the cracks. He doesn’t count them, but follows them with his gaze. It makes him dozy.

“I have a broken marriage behind myself,” Baekhyeon says softly. It barely cuts through the quiescence. “And an endless series of hook-ups.” He shifts, his cheek grazing up Sehun’s chest until his forehead meets Sehun’s chin. “I sort of refused to believe that this is what…intimacy and love should feel like. Maybe I just wasn’t doing it with the right people? Or something is wrong with me?” The moisture of his words seeps into the fabric of Sehun’s sweatshirt. A patch of soothing warmth over Sehun’s heart. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Sehun keeps rubbing at his shoulder He doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know what to say.

It’s okay though. Baekhyeon isn’t expecting an answer from him. Not with these things. He just needs an ear to listen to him.

“I’m staining your shirt,” says Baekhyeon after a few more moments. Sehun feels how he’s grimacing through the cloth.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you wiped your makeup on me,” he reminds with a chuckle. “I don’t mind.”

“Well then,” Baekhyeon says, sly, as he rubs his nose into Sehun. It tickles and Sehun pushes him away, laughter bubbling up his throat.

“Hyeong, behave,” he says through the peals. Baekhyeon listens, but only after he wipes the other side of his face too.

“We can’t sleep like this,” Baekhyeon speaks again after a few minutes, slumberous. His hand goes back to pawing at Sehun’s hip, fingertips digging fitfully.

“Why not.”

Silence. Then Baekhyeon whines. “Right. We can _totally_ sleep like this.”

And finally, the distension in Sehun’s chest, all that chaos, lessens, ebbs away.

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t even notice Sehun standing in the office, beside the door. About half an hour has passed.

Baekhyeon, wearing stripy rayon, holding onto a coffee cup, and looking frantically for his keys through the drawers. His desk is a mess. He is a mess.

It’s stress. The pull of it visible at his temples. His skin, a citrine shade to it, deadened and opalescent. Tiredness, an accumulation of overlaid stressors, added until there is a real, physical weight on his shoulders. He furls with fatigue and disquietude and he won’t even allow himself a smile. The colours of his clothes, no matter how vibrant, seem to catch the dourness of his mood, turn muddy and bland.

It’s been a few days since he last responded to Sehun’s calls, his messages. He’s probably been holed up here all along, not telling him anything, not going home. It’s something that has happened before, and will happen again. Such is the life of a creator, he’s explained previously.

“Hyeong,” says Sehun, when he sees Baekhyeon looking in the same drawer for the third time.

Baekhyeon startles, knocks something off the desk. He looks at Sehun, wearing the meekest expression of surprise, glasses sliding down his shiny nose. His lips thin, tuck together, before he drops everything and steps ahead, breaking into Sehun’s space.

“Take me somewhere.”

Because he can lean onto Sehun too, can count on him too.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is the one driving. Baekhyeon doesn’t say anything, doesn’t inquire and doesn’t object. Not when Sehun gives him some clothes of his own from the little locker he has at the gym, not when he guides Baekhyeon to the treadmill in the corner. Baekhyeon only gives a nod, steps onto it and runs runs runs. Faster, harder until his skin is all melted, he’s wet, he’s panting, his legs aren’t cooperating anymore. He must feel it then, how physical exhaustion takes away his ability to think at all. Whatever worries, whatever was burdening him is all gone when he’s done, when Sehun has to interfere and turn off the machine before he falls.

The flush of his cheeks hasn’t all cleared away by the time they go through the door of Baekhyeon’s apartment. Sehun places a full glass of water into his hands, makes him drink it all, before he ushers him to take a shower. He makes some tea meanwhile, guarding the steeping petals as he illegally downloads an animated movie he’s heard Baekhyeon talking about wanting to watch a while ago.

The bathroom door opens. Baekhyeon is in some loose boxers and an even looser shirt. He halts for a moment, looking down at himself, before he runs a hand through his hair and hastily pads to the sofa and curls up next to Sehun. The droopiness of his eyes, the dullness, the annoyance, the aftermath of all that stress hasn’t been washed away. Sluggish responses. But he looks comfortable now, snuggling up with the thin blanket Sehun passes him.

Sehun would leave, he really would, if he didn’t know being alone actually distresses Baekhyeon more. All he needs is doing nothing.

The mug is cool enough now, and Sehun places it in Baekhyeon’s hands. It’s warm outside, it’s warm everywhere, but Baekhyeon still finds relaxation in holding a cup like that. Baekhyeon nods at him to press play.

Sehun cannot pay attention to the movie. He can laugh blankly, gasp, go through all the automatic reactions. There is a buzz in his mind, a jitteriness that won’t leave him alone. He glances at Baekhyeon. He has this interested face on, but it’s fake, stiff, so ready to drop. He sighs, blinks.

Sehun wonders yet again what’s troubling him. He tells Sehun, usually. Whatever it is, at some point, he rants it all to Sehun.

Sehun looks back at the movie, still not seeing anything. Maybe it’s him. Maybe his presence is what dampens Baekhyeon’s mood like that. Maybe he should, in fact, leave. There must be a reason for him to keep quiet all this time. Sehun might have done something to upset him.

He chances another glance at Baekhyeon, not prepared to ask anything, but maybe to read something in his countenance that could serve for an answer to this worries.

But Baekhyeon’s eyes are closed, inky lashes shadowed on his cheeks, his chest heaving shallowly, leisurely. His face is peaceful now.

The credits roll. Sehun bites his lip, breaths out, and lets go of all the toxic, bitter thoughts ringing in his ears.

The empty cup is just about to drop when Sehun grabs it and pries it away from the soft curl of Baekhyeon’s fingers. He’s half sitting, half stretched out on the sofa, and there is enough space for Sehun to slide an arm under his knees and another under his back. Sehun flexes his palms and lifts him, slowly, carefully, so there won’t be any brusque motion. He leans back enough for Baekhyeon’s head to settle on his shoulder. It makes it so that his nose slides into Baekhyeon’s damp hair.

He only gets to make a few strides before he feels fingers touching his neck. Sehun stops, and looks down. Baekhyeon’s eyes are open, barely so, and it seems to be a crack too small for him to see so much, to stare at Sehun like this. Like something - Sehun is tired too, he can’t read anything now. The only thing awake in him is the completely crazy beating of his heart. He doesn’t want to read anything right now.

He’s only caught Sehun carrying him bridal style. That’s all. Sehun swallows and keeps going, balancing with Baekhyeon’s weight on him until he reaches the bed. He bends over the mattress, first lowering his legs onto it and then using his free hand to cradle his head as he places him onto the pillow. 

The room is obscure except for the lukewarm light coming from the TV in the living room. Sehun feels around until he catches the edge of the thin sheet to cover Baekhyeon. His legs are bare, and no matter how hot it is outside, he still gets cold at night. Sehun only pushes it up to Baekhyeon’s waist, tucks it by his sides so it’s secure.

He stills, not knowing what to do with himself all of a sudden. His legs cramp, seem to give in on him, his being too heavy, so he ends up kneeling. His shoulder hits the mattress and his legs coil under him. There he is, on the floor, next to Baekhyeon’s bed, next to Baekhyeon, who’s still peering at him. In this deep darkness, all Sehun has is the scattered gloss on his pupils.

Baekhyeon’s hand is hanging off the mattress. Sehun reaches for it – the fingertips already seem cold, and places it next to his side on the mattress. Sehun keeps it there, palm over the back of Baekhyeon’s hand. He lightly rubs his thumb over it. The skin is soft there, callouses don’t reach. He turns it over, and his fingers slide along Baekhyeon’s thin, long ones.

When he feels as though Baekhyeon’s fingers would curl with his own, would respond to the touch in any way - “Thank you,” he hears, in Baekhyeon’s frailest, dopiest voice.

His fingers go lax, and he retracts his hand as he turns away, and this doesn’t mean _anything_ , yet Sehun breaks right then and there, falls apart into pieces just like that.

He doesn’t know why this is such an instantaneous backlash, what it means and why it happens now, what exactly is it about this whole thing that he finds it so charged after he’s held Baekhyeon’s hand a million times, after Baekhyeon’s thanked him a million times. Why is it now that Sehun can’t breathe, and his eyes burn and fill and spill, febrile tears running down his cheeks. An ache so strong hits him, not pulsing, but purely blunt, powerful, one that he stands no chance against. Not localized, but full bodied. Knocks of weakness and pain, and Sehun has to slap a hand over his mouth to ensure that no cry escapes.  And it’s dark, thank god it’s dark, and his back to the light, and there is no way for Baekhyeon to see anything even if he was awake. Sehun rises, as fast as he can, dizzy, his vision swarming with blackness, as he makes his legs to run, take him along, farther and farther away until he can close the door of the bedroom and separate himself from Baekhyeon.

Sehun furiously wipes at his cheeks, tries to makes some space in himself to fit a breath. He’s full of disbelief and denial.

He sniffles then, and it’s quite loud, congested, and he hopes that he’s far away enough that Baekhyeon didn’t hear it, didn’t wake from it.

This is ridiculous. He’s ridiculous. Evenly ridiculous to how much he’s in love with Baekhyeon.

Sehun sits back on the sofa, stares ahead, pieces himself back together. He lets himself cry. He doesn’t wipe at his eyes, at his nose anymore. Instead, he lets every tear spill, stain his cheeks, hot and salty.

The movie has started again. He breathes in, little by little. Calming down. Eventually, he stops crying.

Sehun still doesn’t leave yet, but he doesn’t sleep either. The movie plays one more time before Sehun feels clear headed again. Feels whole again.

It was an outburst triggered by nothing but a crumb of a thought – that little gesture felt like rejection, felt like Baekhyeon pushing him away. Explicitly.

Most likely, it wasn’t. Baekhyeon didn’t mean a thing through it. It was nothing.

Sehun feels liberated though. He’s never cried over Baekhyeon, because of Baekhyeon. He needed this. Needed to break down under the pressure for once.

It’s nearing sunrise when Sehun notices Baekhyeon’s phone on the table. He turns it off so the alarm doesn’t ring. Baekhyeon can sleep in if he needs to. Sehun will call the office to let them know that Baekhyeon will not make it to work today.

He checks himself out in the mirror before leaving. His eyes are red. Not a bloodshot red, but a red that looks nearly healthy, as though his eyes weren’t even alive before.

Sehun takes his keys and goes home.

 

 

 

 

 

A summertime storm is upwelling, Sehun notices when he steps out of the subway exit. Dim and sombre. It’s the customary tantrum of the sky between days of suffocating swelter. The first few drops are falling when Sehun begins running.

He’s late already. Baekhyeon texted him to meet for an early dinner after work. Now it’s drizzling too generously for him to bring out his phone to check the time. He quickens his pace. Baekhyeon is already there, has probably waited for at least half an hour, because despite how messy Baekhyeon is sometimes, he’s awfully punctual.

Sehun makes it to the pojangmacha slightly out of breath. His blazer soaked. Baekhyeon is indeed there, in a corner, as far away from the cooking station as possible, dressed in white. He stands out against the gaudy, burning crimson of the plastic surrounding him. He’s curled a bit into the chair. Sehun knows this curl. Legs together, and arms together, elbows and wrists close to touching. It’s a stance telling of vulnerability. But it is not, in fact. Sehun knows it is because of his back pain after sitting too much in front of the computer and he really needs the stretch. He has a big plate of ddeokbokki already in front of himself, one cylinder poked between two toothpicks – orange, medium spice - as he blows on it before nibbling on it.

Sehun steps into a small puddle, splatters muddy water all over his pants, and lands on the stool across from Baekhyeon. He startles, a head jerk and widened eyes, before he softens back, grins warmly, teeth stained yellow. This is the greeting. Sehun returns it.

His hair is mildly shaggy, but his suit isn’t wet anywhere. He got here before the rain started. Sehun looks down at the plate, sees the strips of eomuk on one side and the rice cakes on the other, divided by a trail of semi-wilted green onion pieces. Baekhyeon bites into another cylinder and swiftly makes a sound of approval, surprised, before he reaches across the table and holds the other half to Sehun’s mouth. He takes it. It’s soft. Very soft. Among all the chewy ones there are some that are overcooked, and Baekhyeon really likes the overcooked ones, the rare pillows of savour that just melt into his mouth. Sehun thinks they are still too spicy for Baekhyeon.

He gives Sehun a strip of green onion too before he sighs. Sounds like an overdue exhale, joining the woe of pelting rain on the covers of the pojagmacha. “What a _damn_ long day.”

The beating of his heart is still erratic. Not from the sprint here. Because of Baekhyeon. He’s cute today, pouty. Sehun wants to cuddle him.

“Thought it wasn’t ending too. Do you need a massage?” Sehun’s mouth is coated with pepper. The words itch in his throat.

Baekhyeon wiggles in his seat, straightens. “Wouldn’t be unwelcome. I just need sleep. But later.” He pokes with his toothpick at the other rice cakes. He tries to find other soft ones, but it’s pretty hard to tell just by the feel of them. At last, he picks one random, eats it whole, mouth then pulled into a little, red painted snarl at the spiciness.

“Anything good happened though?” he inquires. Sehun eats a piece too, swallows, before rising to take a napkin from the counter. He puts it into Baekhyeon’s hand to wipe the blob of sauce that landed just off his mouth. The skin will get irritated.

“My boss wants my undies.”

Baekhyeon splutters a bit, tucks his hair behind his ear. “The ones you’re wearing?”

“I don’t know,” Sehun replies as he realizes that his boss hasn’t phrased it clearly. “Maybe.”

Baekhyeon asks for a soju bottle. He’s finished eating, and pushes the plate towards Sehun. “I keep forgetting everyone sees you in undies. Your junk is on at least five buildings in this city.” He opens the bottle, pours some liquor into the glass. “And your nipples.”

“Including my boss.”

Baekhyeon’s face twists at Sehun’s words, at the taste of the alcohol. Sehun laughs, trying to keep his mouth closed. “Including _you_.”

“Well, yeah, but—“ Baekhyeon finishes his drink and licks his lips clean.

“Hyeong, you sound kind of jealous,” Sehun says after swallowing, before catching himself. He shouldn’t be joking about this. He shouldn’t be joking about himself. But he’s sequestered in a tent, in the heart of a storm, a corpus of satisfying gloop at the bottom of his stomach and a bottle of soju in front of him. What else is there for him to even do.

The table is red too. Baekhyeon is pouring another glass, his hand frozen in place as the liquid spills over. Only a few drops. He bends to slurp it down, mouth pressed to the rim of the tumbler so he can pick it up without spilling more all over himself. Another little mouthful. “I don’t know what else to call it.” A tiny voice.

Sehun has one last fishcake on the plate that he only eats half of before he reaches for the glass. The glide of the liquor feels almost soothing down his throat. His head is already as heavy as his belly.

“Okay.” He leans on his hand, his work clothes pulling at him, trying to keep him straight, but he is tired, and there really isn’t any reason to keep himself upright anymore.

And then Baekhyeon does the same, after the ajumma comes to take their plates away, so there’s enough space for them to rest their heads on the tiny table.

“You’re precious to me, that much I know,” Baekhyeon says. 

But not. Not like that. Okay. Okay. It hurts. It definitely hurts somewhere in there, feels the bruising and the inflammation waxing. Nothing he didn’t know, nothing he hasn’t expected, but it’s been said aloud now.

At the same time, it’s comforting, emollient. Baekhyeon is wearing his default effortless smile, the one that is fatigued and devout, the one that is just _Baekhyeon_.

It’s still raining, claps of thunder here and there. It sounds like the climax of the downpour; it should come to a stop soon. Sehun is close enough to the edge of the awning that some drops ricochet and wet his hair. His bangs are damp enough to fall over his face and cover his eyes. He doesn’t make a move to brush them away.

And a moment later, it’s Baekhyeon who sweeps the strands out of his face. He’s staring. _The_ beautiful stare. Like all of them. Sehun’s heart stutters yet again, lurches helplessly in his chest.

“No wonder this face sells so many undies,” Baekhyeon murmurs. They’re facing each other, heads squeezed to fit on a feeble plastic table. They’re breathing the same air.

“It has to be the ass.”

It’s mollifying, relishable, the way the warm, narrow tips of his fingers glide on the cold skin of Sehun’s cheek. He dawdles there, his hand heavy and settled. Sehun looks at him. He’s so close. A few sunspots on his skin, faint, a dusting of stubble on his chin. His mouth, pouty, drooping from how he’s resting it on his outstretched arm. Soft and small and reddened from the spice, from the alcohol. Pretty as always.

And now Sehun is tired and sleepy and nobody else can see him like this. No one but Baekhyeon. Wanting so bad to kiss him, to have him. Not that he would ever make a move, not when - and he slides his gaze off Baekhyeon’s mouth, meets his eyes instead. They’re droopy too, of course, but wear an overtone of something, chatoyant, glassy and tenebrous. The contact breaks, Baekhyeon breaks it, as he looks lower on Sehun’s face. And this is not - this stare burns. Having Baekhyeon looking at his lips like that is - Sehun nearly jerks away before Baekhyeon swallows, looks back at him, unsure. “We should…we can maybe try that.”

Sehun refuses to imagine what these words mean. Refuses to listen to the jolt of hope deluging through him. “Try what?”

He doesn’t use words. Uses all these little clues that do nothing but rouse Sehun. Just licks over his lips, the drag of his tongue pressing over the lower one being hard enough that when he retracts it, the flesh gets dragged in too, then released with a soft plop. A viscid layer of saliva is now on it.

Baekhyeon’s natural lip colour is, by some miracle, a cotton candy pink. Not a hint of an earth tone in it. Just a clean, bewitching pink.

The sight is anguishing.  

Baekhyeon’s hand goes lower, has his thumb pressing to Sehun’s lips. The tip of the nail dips between them. Sehun’s eyes flitter shut. 

“But will this hurt you?” begins Baekhyeon. “Of course it will, right? If I kiss you and then I don’t….I don’t—“ He swallows. “But I can’t think of anything else to…”

Sehun hears the worriment growing with each stutter. “You thought about this before?” he says once Baekhyeon’s thumb is around his jaw, and he can speak, can _think_ again.

“I’m thinking about it now.”

He is. He really really is. It’s a look that Sehun recognizes so easily. When Baekhyeon wants something like that. But it is stained with a layer of curiosity, dubiety.

A groan of some kind – overwhelmed – vibrates in Sehun’s chest as he turns and hides into his arm, just for a moment to get a hold of himself, before he’s back, back to seeing Baekhyeon.

“This is so mean of me isn’t it,” speaks Baekhyeon. A flash of lightning strikes, strong enough that Sehun sees all the dejection on his face perfectly.

“You know that I’m not asking anything of you, right? I’m not asking you be my—” he doesn’t know what word to use, “anything other than my friend. You don’t have to try anything for my sake.”

Baekhyeon is silent. What he utters next can barely be heard. “I’m just thinking, what if I _can_ like you like that?”

“It’s okay if you can’t. It’s really okay. I won’t be going anywhere anyway,” Sehun says. “My love for you is probably not going anywhere either.” He can’t even imagine a life like that. He can’t even remember what it was like when he wasn’t in love with him. It’s an intrinsic part of him now. “But I’m just…hoping that this won’t be uncomfortable for you. That _I_ won’t be. I don’t want anything from you, I’m not asking you for anything, so really, don’t think that you have to do something about…me.” His lungs burn, but they won’t allow him to breathe. “I won’t say anything that you don’t want to hear. I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to do, but I don’t want to leave. And I don’t want to make you promise me that we won’t drift apart because of this but—“

“You’re thinking about me? I’ve unintentionally hurt you so much and you worry about _my_ discomfort?” He’s speaking so softly. His head is still resting on arms, words distorted, barely ended, demulcent. Sincere. Sehun will never tire of listening to him.

“I….just…just don’t leave me. Please. Don’t leave me. Don’t push me away.” There it is, his main fear, spoken to dew on Baekhyeon’s face.

Sehun fears what will become of him if Baekhyeon leaves him. He fears alcoholism. For he has noticed himself leaning towards spirits. When they have hoesiks after work, and there is food, a lot of food, and no Baekhyeon, and even more alcohol. Sehun doesn’t chew a single thing, but he lets whatever liquid stings to cascade down his throat until he feels some resemblance of fullness, of warmth, and he is too out of his mind to long for anything anymore. He’s already waking up hungover more mornings than he wakes up fine. He still trudges to the gym, per habit, no matter how awful he feels. He does everything, per habit, waiting for the day to come to an end so he can drink again. It’s not about the amount, or the time, but about the reason. It’s different from when he drinks with Baekhyeon just so they can get giggly. When he does it alone, when he does it to forget, he goes overboard. It’s not that bad now. He can still control himself. What he fears is that if Baekhyeon leaves him, pushes him away, he won’t even _want_ to control himself.

And if he was smart, if he was made of something else, was someone else, he would have walked away himself, walked away from Baekhyeon the moment he felt the first pangs of attraction. He would have found peace, quiet, gotten rid of all this petrified, tumorous love he’s grown for him before it even dug roots into him. But he isn’t someone else. Doesn’t want to be someone else, doesn’t want to walk away. He’ll be patient, wait for it to die down instead. Wait for it to calcify and peel off him like the skin of a healed wound. Might take a decade or two or more than Sehun is even given to live, but he isn’t going anywhere.

“I won’t. I know I won’t.”

Sehun looks a bit more at him. The mellow grin and the tiny dimple in his cheek and the staggering wash of assuredness stringing it all together. It’s so easy to believe him. Sehun is so close to believing.

“Let’s go,” Baekhyeon says next. Sehun only hears his voice, without the background of falling rain. There are only the last of the drops, and the cars skidding on wet asphalt on the roads. But otherwise, it’s stopped. “Let’s go. Let’s try.”

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun meets Baekhyeon without truly meeting him 6 times, and after the 7th, they are friends, and will be, still are, three years later, when Sehun is gone, mindless, not drunk, but not sober either in the foyer of Baekhyeon’s apartment, where Sehun has his own slippers, a hand, a palm on Baekhyeon’s face, in love beyond words, as he leans in to kiss him.

But he doesn’t. He can’t even bring himself to close in. He knows what it is that’s holding him back. While there’s an incredibly large mass of hope in him, there is no expectation. He meant everything he said to Baekhyeon - he is under no illusion that Baekhyeon might ever be his. But he had hope at least. He had the hope that provided him with some assurance, as much as it clawed at him, made him the slightest bet delusional, made him see affection of a kind that was never there in Baekhyeon’s actions, it was a form of comfort. That hope that made him look forward to a good outcome, to them being more than friends. That might be crushed. He has to prepare himself for it to be taken away from him. He has to brace himself for the resolution to all of this.

And even so, Baekhyeon is doing all of this on his behalf, which he really doesn’t have to.

“Baekhyeon,” he says. It doesn’t feel right to address him by any other name. He makes to pull away a bit, which oddly, is easier than closing in. He musters to tell him again that he doesn’t have to do this when Baekhyeon’s hand comes to rest low on Sehun’s hip.

“You don’t want to?”

If he wants to. _If he wants to._

Sehun doesn’t trust himself to utter that in a manner that doesn’t let him know just how much, just how fucking much he wants to. It’s not even about being good with words, but he really can’t put it in them. He can’t find any. But he can nod. He can give a little nod. Because he wants to, _so fucking much_ , and knowing is for the best.

Baekhyeon nods back. Such a soft movement, such a little encouragement, coupled with a small tightening on the hand on his hips. Sehun steps forward. Then one more little step. One more.

He looks down. The tips of his feet touch Baekhyeon’s. They’re still wearing their shoes. They could have gone deeper into the home, sit down somewhere, but no, they’re right next to the door. Sehun likes that – he can run faster, swifter in case this backfires, in case he breaks down from this, and that is _not_ something that Baekhyeon should to see.

Baekhyeon’s back is against the wall, Sehun is looming over him, and everything is dim. the air a smog of tension from the moment they stepped in. It envenoms, clots now.

But he doesn’t. Not yet. He closes in and waits, waits for Baekhyeon to make the first move, to want him enough. What is a little more waiting after all of this.

They’re not wheezing anymore from the brisk walk here. There is a havoc wrecking inside of Sehun, but he’s also eerily tranquil being this close to Baekhyeon. He waits a bit more for Baekhyeon, for this is his decision to make. And he sees it then, in the minimal light between them, Baekhyeon’s eyes glazing over, the bobbing of his throat as he swallows drily, licks his lips, as he lays a tentative hand on Sehun’s hip. And _finally_ , rising on his toes.

The last thing Sehun sees before he closes his eyes is his cleaved mouth, parted just right for a shadow to pour out and deepen the red of his lips. A split second later follows a smithereen of a kiss. Not the touch of it, not the taste, not the breath, just the intention, the proximity.

The hand tightens on Sehun’s hip before Baekhyeon’s lips connect with his.

It’s barely there, childish even, akin to the brush of a petal on skin, warm and soft. Sehun shatters.

He pulls away. Sehun is still waiting, eyes still closed, closed _tight_. He doesn’t want to see Baekhyeon’s face right now, the reaction, rejection, whatever it might be for the peck to end so soon.

Is this it? is this all? Nothing more would be needed for Baekhyeon to tell. He either felt something or he felt nothing. And this is all, this is all, this is the end of everything, and Sehun only has the energy pull away a little, unsure and weak, if this is all, the door the goddamn door is right here fuck -

But then, then warm little hands come around his jaw, thumbs on either side of his mouth, bringing him back in. A breath later fans on his lips, before there is the press again. Harder, closer. An angle and an opening of his lips around Sehun’s. It is indeed a kiss. Baekhyeon is kissing him.

Sehun doesn’t - he can’t respond, just stays, crumbles some more as his core becomes spumescent and his legs tremor.

Baekhyeon tears away from him. There is little squeak from the detachment of their lips. Baekhyeon is cupping his face, bringing him close, takes him in, and whispers his name, once, twice, until Sehun catches on that it’s an actual word. He opens his eyes. Blinks, blinks, fuck. _Fuck_.

“I’m not doing this alone,” he says. “You have to do it with me.”

Right. Sehun has to cooperate. Has to pluck out the nails keeping him in place and allow himself to taste Baekhyeon properly. It takes a few moments for enough courage to upwell in him, but it does, lastly, and he takes a step forward, intrudes until there is barely any space between him and Baekhyeon without actually touching him. He’s waiting now, Baekhyeon too, he’s waiting for Sehun to be the one to initiate. It takes a dip, an incline of his head for their lips to touch. It’s shallow, a slotting that has his lower lip fitting between the natural rift between Baekhyeon’s. He lets it last for a pinch of a second before gently enfolding his cupid’s bow, releasing, switching, doing it with his lower lip, Baekhyeon allowing it, parting for him, pressing, switching, switching, until moisture slips through, coats their kiss and makes it hotter, makes it faster.

Sehun expects it to stay isolated, impersonal to a degree, only their lips, their faces touching. He doesn’t dare wrap his arms around Baekhyeon, bring him in, take him. He has his hands by his sides, listless, as parts his lips softly around Baekhyeon’s, moves with him. And it stays this way, distant, until the haste of their close-mouthed kiss reaches a culmination and falls into an interlude, their lips overlapping while there is an aperture between them, space, and then there it comes, the demure slide of the tip of Baekhyeon’s tongue sweeping little, moist scores across Sehun’s, deep enough that it passes the ledge of his teeth and touches his tongue too, contours the margin of it before he pulls back, taking Sehun’s lower lip in a mellow suck. Sehun fucking moans, his knees going weak as he finds purchase on Baekhyeon, twines an arm around his waist, pulls him close and up so he can reach to lick into his mouth too. And Baekhyeon climbs up him, touches him, grabbing at his hip, pulling, as his hand on Sehun’s neck, his jaw, steers the angle of his mouth against his own.

A drift of wetness from his lip, the veer of his tongue against his, a texture, soft, too soft, flowing from Baekhyeon’s mouth into his. Flesh of a nearly creamy texture, smooth and inviting and there is filth to this, divergent, but so intimate, so deep, this giving in. The nuance of it isn’t aggressive though, there is no digging and no painful nips, but a rapid, encompassing need to pleasure, all modulated by carefulness at the same time as it is reined by this sudden want.

Sehun forgets all about technicalities now, all about the dynamics, doesn’t remember, doesn’t control a thing. It’s all just kissing Baekhyeon and holding Baekhyeon and seeking to make him nip another of those tiny, dulcet moans onto Sehun’s lips. They’re stepping ahead or behind or to a side, but they are moving. Sehun’s back is to a wall, then it’s not anymore, Baekhyeon’s hips hit a counter, then he only has Sehun holding him straight, then there is a wall again. Baekhyeon isn’t wearing his blazer anymore, somehow, and Sehun is touching his back, feels though his shirt the minute shifts of the muscles, the softness over them as Baekhyeon’s hand clambers over his nape and twines into his hair, applies a bit of force, just a suggestion, to have Sehun bending enough to slide his tongue against Sehun’s palate, to let Sehun suckle on it as it retreats. He can’t get enough of the downy consistency of his kiss, flesh giving, pappy, but demanding, giving, demanding. Baekhyeon whines, his nails scribbling down his nape, at his shoulders as they descend, press.

Little kiss by little kiss, they part, an incremental ebbing until there is one final suck from Sehun and a sequent squelch of released suction. It was solely for air that they pulled away, that they go farther and farther from each other until they can breathe fresh air instead of each other’s moans. Sehun’s chest is compact, starved, and his mouth tingly, sweet, caramelized.

“Did you…like it?” Sehun asks with the breath he stole out of Baekhyeon. This is what they’re doing this for, he reminds himself.

Baekhyeon is licking over his lips, still there, still close, as Sehun feels it against his. He’s cradling Sehun’s face, palms slightly damp. He feels a rhyme of exhales, spoken right into the skin of Sehun’s cheek.

“I..” a breath, a reflex, pressing in again, parting his lips around Sehun’s and Sehun, for a fleeting moment, has the doubt that this might be just cursory, instinctive desire. Some mouths feel good anyway. But it’s not, not with the way Baekhyeon holds onto him. Not like this. He’s seen plenty of times the manner of Baekhyeon’s kissing - like he’s trying to conquer something. Now it’s curious and craving and insatiate.

“You?” parts Sehun to say. His eyes are still shut, kept so by the same fear of reading anything on Baekhyeon that he’s not ready for.

The smallest motion of the fingers he has interlaced in the hairs at the back of Sehun’s head, akin to a scratch. A kiss to his cheek, wet and warm. Breaths and breaths until he’s lucid again.

“What do you think,” he says, a rough voice followed by a scoff that ascends into airy twitters. It seems to both disrupt and enliven the settled stillness.

It also becalms Sehun. As though this is not a big deal.

He opens his eyes. It’s relatively dark, the muted yellows of the sunset greyed by the dispelling storm. The window isn’t facing right for much of that light to seep in, and it takes a while for Sehun to adjust to the dimness, to regain his senses. Then all he sees is Baekhyeon staring, gaze lustrous and molten, fixed on Sehun’s lips.

He doesn’t respond to that question. _What do you think._ It would sound derisory if Sehun didn’t remember that Baekhyeon has never tried this before, this is new and this is big. The time Sehun realized he liked Baekhyeon, that night in the club, it felt as though he’s been lying to himself for a lifetime, as though he’s betrayed himself for a lifetime. So it makes sense for Baekhyeon to be shaken too, to be confused too. Or certain.

Baekhyeon steps away. It’s all ended.

They’re in the living room. Sehun can make out the mess Baekhyeon’s left behind in his morning haste to leave, a thrown tee and scattered papers, his laptop at the foot of the couch, a few watches next to the TV.

Baekhyeon springs back in his field of vision after picking up his blazer off the floor. He places it on the arm of the couch. His shirt it wrinkled, untucked, from where Sehun’s hands have been, have pulled it out. He beings unclasping the necklace around his neck.

Sehun waits for him to speak, after he kissed Sehun like that, after they kissed like that, got high and dizzy, so he stays there, to the wall, and waits.

“Wh—“ he begins, the silence compressing him, words that go nowhere and know no meaning. He just has to say something, has to hear something. He feels as though he’s on a tightrope, barely holding on, and a void underneath calling for him. There’s a sinking in his stomach. He’s nauseous. “What—“

“Let’s change,” Baekhyeon says over him, padding into his bedroom only to come back with a small stack of clothes. Sehun’s clothes, clean and folded. He offers them to Sehun, held in his two hands, outstretched, eyes gentle and drooped, like they’ve always been, like always, like nothing changed.

Sehun looks at the clothes, then at Baekhyeon, then back at the clothes. He can’t run if he’s dressed in pyjamas, can’t run if he’s not wearing his shoes anymore. Baekhyeon’s feet are bare now, he notices. Toes turned inward. He wants to see them covered in fuzzy socks, for Baekhyeon’s feet get cold easily.

“I know the smell of rain is poetic and stuff, but it might stink up your clothes,” Baekhyeon says, wrinkling his nose. Another offering, another little smile, and Sehun sighs and obeys, takes the clothes and goes away from the door, leaving his shoes behind.

He’s back too soon. He’s back and he stands at the door of the bathroom. Baekhyeon is changed too, all in faded, baggy cotton, curled up on the couch. His hair is tangled – Sehun made it so – and doesn’t know what he should do anymore, what he should say.

“Come here,” Baekhyeon speaks, sliding to a side a bit to make space for Sehun.

Sehun listens, complies, goes, sits. He was kind of hoping the couch would swallow him whole. It doesn’t.  It is small enough that he shares the same dip of the cushion with Baekhyeon, the both of them sliding towards the chasm made by their weight. There is light now, a clement, bisque one, warming up the ambiance, and Baekhyeon too. He sees the residuum of the kiss earlier, a puffiness to his lips and Sehun asks yet again, “Did you like it?”

For a moment Baekhyeon folds into himself, then he unfurls, comes closer, his shoulder against Sehun’s. “Yes. I liked it. I really—“ he stops, looks at Sehun. He does that thing with his mouth, when he parts his lips with his tongue and holds it there, pensive, a light pink between two lunes of richer pink. “Will you wait a bit?” He grimaces, but still peers at Sehun, imploring.

“For what?”

Baekhyeon swallows, his jaw clenching, turning away for a blink before he slides even closer and stretches a hand out to wind around Sehun’s nape. He quivers before he gets used to the touch there, to this context, for the last time it was there it was to bring him down to lick into Baekhyeon’s mouth. And he lets him though, lets him press until Sehun’s temple is against the side of Baekhyeon’s neck. It’s his place here. He’s already a bit calmer, just feeling the song of Baekhyeon’s heartbeat through the skin. Baekhyeon’s fingers thread through his hair, make order through the mess he made himself. He keeps on doing it, raking his fingertips lightly on Sehun’s scalp. When Baekhyeon begins speaking, it’s not after a big inhale, but after a mere pause in his scratching “You deserve better,” he says.

Sehun hears it so clearly. It sounds like a very bad start already, and he closes his eyes, waits for the worst.

Now here comes the big breath. “Maybe I’m stupid for being so unsure, but I keep thinking I like you just as a friend. Because I want to keep you being my friend. Maybe it’s pity. Maybe it’s guilt at knowing your feelings. Maybe it’s just curiosity, for I’ve never been with a man before. Truthfully, I’ve never even considered it. Maybe I liked kissing you just because it was a new experience. Maybe you’re just a really great kisser. Maybe my loneliness just wants me to take advantage of you.”

Sehun hears the mechanics too, the gulps and the pauses between words, and more than anything, he hears how frayed it sounds, thoughts turned over and over. Sehun reaches down and pulls the cuffs of Baekhyeon’s sweats over the little part of his foot that is sticking out from under him, uncovered and cold.

“You deserve better than being my guilt or my curiosity or my greed.” 

And yet it feels weird, this expectance in him, after so long of having none of it. It makes him feel even sicker to his stomach. “And when you’re sure that you don’t like me like that...” He mumbles it all only for Baekhyeon’s neck to hear. Not him. Because if that would be the case, it’s not something that can’t be helped. Sehun can’t demand to be loved. He can’t _guilt_ Baekhyeon into loving him.

The scratching at his head changes, it’s more earnest, to soothe, faster too. “We’ll think about that then.”

Sehun sniffles, even though he didn’t cry. He pulls away from Baekhyeon enough to look him in the eye. “I’ll try to seduce you,” he declares.

Baekhyeon gapes, then snorts, nasal and crisp, before he laughs. The dimples show. Sehun melts. “Try.”

Sehun is already lost. He has absolutely no idea what the fuck to even _do_ to seduce Baekhyeon. But he’ll figure it out, he’ll do something. That’s what the internet is for, not that Baekhyeon could fill for generic, bullet-point tricks written by slimy teenagers, but there has to be something he can do. Hopefully, Baekhyeon isn’t expecting much.

“So when you’re sure… “

“I’ll let you know.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Something happened,” says Kyeongsu, first thing, as Sehun approaches him outside their building at the beginning of the lunch break.

“We kissed.” Sehun puts effort into saying the word without thinking back on the act. He succeeds. A little.

Kyeongsu’s eyebrows raise above the frames of his glasses. “And?”

The thing that happened before it – the breakdown, when Sehun cried, when Sehun realized and acknowledged the incommensurable depth of his feelings, and then the trial that he has no answer to as of now. Sehun feels battered, but at the same time, revived. It was all the wondering, all the time, looking like a hawk for any shred of affection. Now he can stop doing that. He’s been promised a response. It’s freeing as much as it is binding.

“And nothing.” Really.

Kyeongsu smiles. It would appear malicious if not for the fact that neither the shape of his lips, nor his personality would ever allow it to be so. “It eats you alive.”

Sehun bites back the intention to refute. “That about sums it up.”

When he has a bowl of steaming stew in front of himself, half of it already eaten, he looks at Sehun. Not-hungry Kyeongsu is very different from hungry Kyeongsu. “You’re stupid,” he says, “you occasionally think and do very stupid things,” Kyeongsu says, calculative, doenjang at the corner of his lip. It’s deadpan, flat, but not rooted in animosity.

Sehun thinks about it, thinks back on his behaviour. The mess he’s been and the mess he’s done. Yes, he is stupid as fuck. He is as stupid as he could possibly be.

Baekhyeon made him so. Being in love with Baekhyeon made him so. He’s turned him and his world upside down.

“I’m kind of jealous of this,” Kyeongsu says at the end of the break, an emergency coffee in his hand. They have entered the shadow of their building already, and Kyeongsu’s mood visibly drops. “I think very few people get to fall like you did.”

Sehun takes his name tag out of his pocket. “Are you saying it’s a good thing now?”

Kyeongsu sighs. “I’m saying you’ll never leave him.”

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t do anything. He can’t think of anything to do to charm Baekhyeon. Not at this point, anyway, when everything is exposed between them, when all the niceties, all the suavity has already been used up in their friendship. He cannot approach Baekhyeon anew. There is nothing that he can do now that will count as seduction without it being crass, or uncomfortably forward.

Buy him flowers, he did that, try the charming smirks, he did that, take his hand, he did that, show that he cares, he did that, take him on a date, he did that. All the tricks in the book, he tried them all. They had vacations, and outings that he will never forget, the sweetest gestures, shared beds, shared foods, shared hardships, shared everything there is to share. It was though all of these moments that Sehun fell for Baekhyeon. The two of them, together. Which means everything they did so far, all the wonderful things Sehun experienced, didn’t have the same effect on Baekhyeon. At the end of this journey, he didn’t fall for Sehun the way Sehun did.

So he doesn’t try, doesn’t look to do more.

He doesn’t have anything else, anyone else, but himself. He wishes that’s enough.

What he allows himself, however, is to be more open. Normalcy has resettled between them, the routines are back in place – but now, Sehun tells him. Sehun tells him everything. How pretty he finds him. How silly. How funny. What he does to him. They are no longer secrets that nibble at Sehun, but they are instead words that Baekhyeon hears, remembers, and blushes at, pretty, pink.

As Baekhyeon’s hand touches his own on the crowded street on a late weekend night so they don’t get pulled apart by the moving people, Sehun whispers into his neck, from behind him just how fluttery that makes him feel, how much he enjoys the feel of Baekhyeon’s hand tangled with his. And he asks him to not let go, even though it’s not necessary to hold hands anymore. He was never one for elaborate wording. He says it, raw as it comes, ripped out like a moan.

Baekhyeon doesn’t pull away, doesn’t take it away, because while it might not mean much for him, he knows now what pleasure Sehun takes in it, and Baekhyeon would never rob him of this. If Sehun likes it, Baekhyeon will hold his hand. If Sehun likes it, Baekhyeon will plant his head on Sehun’s stomach as he works. He feels adored, touched, too, now that he’s not blind anymore.

He’s not pushing, he’s not insisting. Baekhyeon isn’t uncomfortable. He doesn’t allow it to get sexual, inappropriate. Sehun doesn’t tell him how dizzy the fragrance of his skin makes him when he comes from work and changes into house clothes without showering first. How great his thighs look in these pants. How alluring his bared collarbones and his neck are when his shirt is loose, unbuttoned. Doesn’t tell him how he wants to kiss him, again, more. Hold him closer. Place a peck under his ear while he’s resting his head on Baekhyeon’s shoulder. These are not things he should hear.

His touches on Baekhyeon don’t linger any more than they did before. Don’t mean more either.

When they’re sleeping in the same bed, wake up in the same bed, Sehun before Baekhyeon, he takes the time to tuck the sheets properly around Baekhyeon so he doesn’t get hit by the cold morning air. Baekhyeon, eyes blinking open slowly, catches him staring, watching over him. He lets Baekhyeon see how Sehun never gets enough of looking at him.

He doesn’t respond, but he never tells him no either. A compromise.

Sehun doesn’t see things in sequences anymore, he doesn’t really wait anymore. He can nearly forget that something is pending, an answer is pending.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun is in a magazine. A real magazine. Six pages of him in it, as the developer who moonlights as a model. Sehun stares at it. Stares at himself. He answered a few questions for a small interview, which is layered neatly over pictures. But in the introduction, there is one line that catches his eye. It is generic and garish. _Probably the hottest man in the city_.

Sehun reads over that again and snickers.

Baekhyeon’s chin pokes at his shoulder. “I’m glad to see they have functional eyes at least,” he says, “I nearly couldn’t believe it after they approved of this layout.” Baekhyeon will first make him shiver and then judge the layout. Nothing new. Sehun turns, his nose meeting the underside of Baekhyeon’s jaw. He changed his perfume. It’s cool, slightly fruity. No sting to it. Sehun likes this one better.

He gazes at Baekhyeon then, and it so happens that Baekhyeon is smiling, the points of his canines visible, then hidden by the pink of his lips. The dimples, stretching on either side, two little brackets around it.  And his jaw, strong, but with a lissom, harmonious curve, relaxed, the skin barely pulled over it, looking soft.

“I think they’re wrong,” Sehun begins saying, perfunctory, disregarding the fact that Baekhyeon just complimented him. “I think it’s you. You are the hottest man in this city.”

Baekhyeon stills, looking at him, his simper twitching, widening, shortening, widening, shortening, widening – he bursts into giggles, tiny choky ones. “What the hell,” he laughs, hitting Sehun. “No.”

His cheeks are _glowing_ and his eyes _disappear_. He’s cowering with embarrassment. And it’s _so_ precious.

Sehun hits him back, his hand barely closed in a fist, knuckles making contact with Baekhyeon’s chest.  “You’re definitely the hottest guy I’ve ever seen,” Sehun confesses. From the very first time he’d seen Baekhyeon, that winter night at the club, he’d thought so. And then the second time. And the third. And the hundredth. And now too, Sehun thinks Baekhyeon is the sexiest man he’s ever seen.

Baekhyeon laughs, and swats his hand away, breathing heavy. “I take it you haven’t seen many.”

“I have. It’s still you.”

He’s blushing. There are dapples of coral on his cheeks. He’s _blushing_. Sehun needs to hold onto something.

“But I don’t have abs,” Baekhyeon counters through deadened crumbs of twitters. He takes the magazine, eyes scanning over the images. Over Sehun. He’s shirtless in a couple of shots. “Nor a sharp jaw, nor muscular arms or broad shoulders. I’m not tall either. I really don’t have anything that makes a hot man.”

His tone is dry. Clinical. Like he’s judging an exhibit rather than putting himself down. As though thinking of himself in this manner doesn’t affect him at all.

“You don’t need any of that,” Sehun says, before Baekhyeon has the chance to dwell on his own words. Before he begins believing them. “I never noticed the absence of those characteristics, I just noticed that you’re very beautiful, and hot as fuck.”

He takes the magazine from Baekhyeon, closes it, tosses it onto the counter. “And in fact, your jaw is gorgeous and your shoulders are gorgeous and your back too and your legs too, and you’re the perfect height.” Sehun will _not_ let Baekhyeon undermine himself like that. Sehun will keep pressing, will keep telling him how beautiful he is until he believes it.

Baekhyeon’s face pauses mid-laugh, his eyes wide, shiny, before he hits Sehun again. “Ya!” he shouts, but short, a loud, even sound that ebbs curtly. A response stemming from wonderment, not knowing how else to react to Sehun’s onslaught of praise. And he’s _still_ blushing, pinker, and it is so cute, and he titters too, and that’s also cute.

God, Sehun needs help.

“Is this flirting?” he asks.

“No, this is the truth.”

And now Baekhyeon is really laughing, and also hitting him, and it sounds _amazing_ and feels _amazing_ , so Sehun can’t even feel embarrassed.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun doesn’t want to move out of the oktapbang.

He’s acquainted with the neighbours downstairs - two girls who work at the nearby vet clinic, and lower, an elderly man who always has friends over that he plays Go Stop with.

He’s used to the cramped kitchen. He’s learned how to keep this small, but open room tidy. He has a place for everything, space for everything. What he’s added new is a bigger closet, given he has an expanding work wardrobe now, plus what he’s given from 78MM. And a new mattress. That’s all he needed.

The roof doesn’t leak anymore and the floor heating works just fine, and he likes it, this place. He likes that he can go out wearing basically nothing, have the cat from the house block next to his hop over the ledge and lazily rub against Sehun’s leg. The area of the rooftop is big enough that he can do some stretches, a light jog, pace around when he’s distressed. He would like to make a small garden in a corner. There were a few flower pots left from the owner dotting the boundary of the roof, just leaves that never bloom into anything, but they’re still growing. He didn’t let them die.

Sehun isn’t a student anymore, doesn’t rely on money from his parents anymore, and he can afford way better housing, but he really doesn’t want to move out.

The little gym is close too. At the moment, he’s not in his best shape – not eating right, not exercising right. It’s either too much or too little.

But he turns to working out now, instead of alcohol. Right after the incident, after the _kiss_ , he thought he’d want to drink again. But he didn’t. And now he simply doesn’t look at alcohol the same way he did before. He doesn’t crave it anymore, he doesn’t seek it, doesn’t need it. He wouldn’t delude himself into thinking that this is more than a temporary phase – there is a state of mind that alcohol gives that is more curative to him than anything else – but he takes advantage of it.

So he keeps working out. He does different things too, more cardio, circuits, stretching.

While he enjoys it, it still feels like it’s a form of coping. Looking to strengthen himself for what’s to come, for whatever will happen to this, to _them_. He’s not sure of what toll this will take on his mental health, but at least he knows his body won’t give up on him.

And he wants to do other things too. Sehun wants to own other things. He would like a car. A Lexus, specifically. He’s always wanted a car, but never actively wished for it, never done something about it. He’s gotten his licence as soon as he could, before finishing high school. He was even the first one from his class. And now he has no other ambitions. He will keep working, bettering himself, and he just wants a car. He’s not even that far from it, he notices when he checks his balance. Budgeting didn’t come hard to him, and he’s been careful with his spending. He’s not far. In about a year, he calculates, he can buy it.

He can live like this. He’s happy like this.

It’s okay, no matter what Baekhyeon decides on.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re on their way to see Jongin now. A jazz performance, Jongin said, shyly giving them the invitations. He’s the lead.

It’s crowded on the subway. All of the seats are taken. Sehun makes some space and lets Baekhyeon lean against the wall as he stands in front of him. So it’s Sehun, his back, his sides, that take all the elbowing, all the battering.

“You’ve always done that,” speaks Baekhyeon, suddenly, interrupting himself from his enthusiastic rant about seeing Jongin on stage. It will be the first time for him too.

It’s loud in the car. Blended voices, the moving train, someone listening to rock music, the robot announcing the stops. Too loud. Baekhyeon’s voice is ariose, barely makes it to him.

“Done what?”

Someone is getting up, a hefty bag on their back, and Sehun is already putting a hand on Baekhyeon, getting him out of the way. It hits his flank instead. He braces an arm on the window behind Baekhyeon so he doesn’t fall into him from the impact.

“This.”

“This?” Sehun frowns, before “Have I…” he says, voice and thoughts trailing off. Because he is indeed doing this a lot. When he is around Baekhyeon, it’s rare that he doesn’t think about his comfort first. He gives him the better pillow, his favourite parts of the food they like, arranges his clothes, small adjustment, when they go awry by the end of the day. He fends off all the people in the clubs, when they dance too, steering him away from the onslaught of flying limbs. He brings him coffee. Makes sure he’s had his water. He even blew in Baekhyeon’s soup to cool it one time.

And Baekhyeon, Baekhyeon is just now realizing this too, in time with Sehun, because this complete, absolute palliation of his eyes can mean nothing else.

“You too,” Sehun says after a while. He half-notices that their stop is near.

“Me too?” replies Baekhyeon, nearabout cynical, biting, as he follows behind Sehun, his back and his broadness, as he makes way for them both. They’re in front of the doors now. “I wasn’t the one who just—“ he gesticulates around, still disbelieving, but grinning anyway. There is something on his lips. A tint of some sort sopped into the skin. His lips are usually red, but this is a different tone of it. Also, sleek.

“You do it too.”

Replacing the box of instant coffee before Sehun gets to finish the previous one. Buying toiletries for Sehun to have at Baekhyeon’s. All the food and all the drinks. The times he’s walked Sehun home, and waited for him downstairs until Sehun really got in, safe and sound. All the encouragements. How he makes sure Sehun isn’t alone, that he’s included, not left behind, not left around.

“Really,” Sehun says, hooking his arm with Baekhyeon’s as they step out.

They’re in front of the venue when Baekhyeon believes it, turns to him and speaks. “Guess I do it too, yeah.”

 

 

 

 

 

It’s late morning. They’re texting, moaning about how hungry and how lazy they are and how much they don’t want to wake up. The spelling is a dismembered disaster drenched with complaints. There are puppy gifs in there, memes, and Sehun is giggling, falling into two minute naps, waking up, giggling some more, and suddenly there is a knock on the door. Sehun frowns, cusses, and struts to open it.

Baekhyeon.

In pyjama pants, Sehun’s tee, untied shoes, his phone and keys in his hand.

“Thought you were lazy,” squints Sehun. He surely slept in these clothes. He’s out of bed at least.

“Yeah,” grins Baekhyeon. It’s a cushioned grin. “Yeah but…” He steps forward, taking off his shoes. His feet are close together. He places his belongings on the small stand next to the door. His hands are free now, fingers curled around nothing.

“Hyeong,” says Sehun, low, inquisitive.

Baekhyeon smiles, restrained still, merely an intimation of it, and steps ahead until he stands in front of Sehun. And then he walks. He walks Sehun backward, stride by stride, while seizing his eyes. It’s a thing they do often, in the clubs and some other crowded places, when they cannot speak, cannot touch, but they have to get to the same place. Sehun is used to being commandeered like this, to doing it back. Only it is unsettling now, being it’s quiet, save for the creaks of the floor, and there are no other bodies estranging them and – the backs of Sehun’s knees hit the bed. Baekhyeon takes another step. Sehun gives in and sits.

Baekhyeon stills. Hesitance. Trenchant. A small drift that starts and dies down immediately. Once more. And then, Baekhyeon comes nearer, sits too, on top of Sehun, kneeling on either sides of Sehun’s thighs.

“Hyeong,” Sehun says again, heart squeezing in his chest. What is this. Why is the mood so different from a few minutes ago, when they were texting nothings. What—

Baekhyeon’s mouth opens. A small line of darkness appears between his lips, before it disappears as quick as it appeared, words that were never said taken along. He leans forward, the slack hands by his sides coming up to rest on Sehun’s shoulders. He’s tense. Sehun can feel the mild quiver of his thighs as he tries to keep his weight off Sehun. He comes even closer, a sudden relaxation of his whole body that ends up with their foreheads touching. Bone on bone and the thin skin in between. Sehun freezes.

“Hyeo-” Sehun tries once again, but doesn’t get to finish, for Baekhyeon is kissing him. Baekhyeon’s kissing _the fuck_ out of him. Passionate, sure, fast, but shallow. No aggression, no tongues. Abounding touches, strong, gripping fingers. And it lasts, it stretches for a period long enough that Sehun is coaxed into responding with the same amount of eagerness despite his confusion. It’s hard not to, so hard, when Baekhyeon is like this with him, when he is kissing him like this, pulling Sehun to himself like his life depends on it.

“Don’t play with me,” he croaks, detangling from Baekhyeon. He needs air, and he needs to compose himself. “If this isn’t – if you don’t –“ Sehun closes his eyes so he doesn’t see Baekhyeon anymore. “Don’t play with me.”

He wouldn’t be this cruel. He wouldn’t use Sehun like that. But still-

“I like you,” Baekhyeon says, quick, frightened. “Sehun-ah.” His hand glides from Sehun’s nape to his jaw, Sehun’s chin slotting the in the space between his index and his thumb. He doesn’t press, but he follows along when Sehun tips his head back and looks up at Baekhyeon. “I like you.”

Sehun finds it hard to trust his ears. Sehun finds it hard to believe what is happening right now.

“Do you really?” The query tastes off. Like he’s asking for a favour. Asking Baekhyeon to give him something too big. Something that he’s not yet prepared for.

Baekhyeon’s eyes move, pendulate in tandem with Sehun’s. They’re so close. Baekhyeon smiles, followed by a puff of air, a modicum of a giggle that fans sweet and warm on Sehun’s cheek. “Yeah.”

It’s been less than three weeks. Eighteen days, counts Sehun. That’s how long it’s been since Sehun kissed Baekhyeon last, and first. And now, eighteen days later, at the second kiss, Baekhyeon is sure he likes him.

“You like me,” Sehun says. He licks his lips. He tastes Baekhyeon. He licks them again, and starts getting used to the idea, and to Baekhyeon being currently in his _lap_ , peering at him fondly, nodding another “yes”. And another.

What Sehun is feeling isn’t foreign – the breathlessness and the tremblor that comes with a wave of affection for Baekhyeon - but it’s tenfold stronger now, tenfold better, to a point that the frizz cumulating in his chest paralyzes him, controls him all at once, and he _has_ to envelop Baekhyeon in his arms and pull him in, all of him, for Sehun is sure he has never felt a happiness so strong, so exhaustive in his life. He’s on the verge of cracking under the pressure of it.

“Whoa,” mutters Baekhyeon in surprise. He snuggles up into Sehun, breathes into his skin. Sehun isn’t letting him go. Ever. He still has to squeeze him to his chest until he can breathe again around the mass of glee inside him. He’s making some sounds too, giggles, but subdued, overwhelmed. Baekhyeon reacts to them by petting his head.

“Been thinking about you,” Baekhyeon says, hushful. He doesn’t need to say it any louder when he’s speaking this close to Sehun’s ear. “A lot,” he laughs, chest to chest with Sehun. Sehun whimpers.

The tip of Baekhyeon nose trails the valley under Sehun’s cheekbone. He lies a dreamy little peck at the corner of Sehun’s mouth. “About this,” he says. “And some other things too.”

Sehun might cry. He’s naught but a havoc of euphoria and Baekhyeon is _still_ adding to it. He closes his eyes and lodges his forehead on the bridge of Baekhyeon’s collarbone as he pulls himself together.

Baekhyeon cards his fingers through Sehun’s hair, waits.

“Me too,” Sehun says. He raises his head, his gaze, and meets Baekhyeon’s. “For a few years. Me too.”

He stares at Sehun. Unblinking. At the corner of his left eye, two lashes are tangled. The lower part of his face squirms, his dimple winking once and his lips pulling to a side, tightening, widening. Sehun has never seen him so flustered before. He shakes his head, twice, looks down, then looks back at Sehun.

“I don’t know how you handled it,” Baekhyeon says, and the last syllable, the very last exhale, is pressed to Sehun’s lips. Soft. And again, harder, closer, as he latches onto Sehun’s lower lip, the dry, cracked breadth settling just under the line of it, before he wets the whole expanse when he pulls back. Sehun moans, the sound seeping through the small gap Baekhyeon carved between his lips.

Kissing Baekhyeon when he’s sure is different.

Sehun still remembers, with great detail, how it was previously. Even though he tried not to think back on it, it still replayed over in his mind, all the sounds, all the gestures, all the touches. Sehun remembers everything. And this is different. Baekhyeon’s kisses are so much more wanton, freer, deeper. _He_ is so much more wanton. The way he presses to Sehun, no longer wondrous, flighty, but slower, purposeful, all that hunger tempered, tapered by care. The curiosity, the splinters of hesitation, are replaced with confidence, with raw, unmediated want. Sehun cannot get enough of him like this. Cannot get enough of his grasps and his lips and the way he grabs at Sehun, envelops him with touches. It’s light, attentive, the way he directs Sehun, the way he abides by Sehun’s own nudges, twists. So wet. So strong. Baekhyeon and the sounds of pulled lips, his little moans too. Sehun loves this. A lot. And Baekhyeon too. And what this is doing. To have Baekhyeon incited from kisses alone.

It’s through a mishap, a motion that doesn’t coordinate between them that the kiss breaks, soundless, and Sehun feels the need to take in an inhale.

The warm, summery spectre of Baekhyeon’s breath leaves a panoply of tingles over his lips.

He feels how kiss swollen his lips are. Feels the rawness of the garnered little bites Baekhyeon has placed on them. Baekhyeon slides away a fraction, so he’s no longer bent over Sehun, and Sehun is now eye level with Baekhyeon’s pretty pretty, very pretty mouth. Puffy and red. The contrast with the rest of his skin is enchanting. “Pretty,” he whispers.

“You too,” Baekhyeon responds, insufflating a blush straight into Sehun’s cheeks. “But I’m the taller one now.” He laughs. The shiniest laugh.

“You don’t like being small?” Sehun teases.

Baekhyeon frowns, gapes, twitches. “I’m not _small_!” Whiny. “I’m _compact_ , and sleek. Like…”

Kiss kiss goddammit because he’s speaking right there with moist, stung lips, and Sehun is nothing if not a whipped man. “Like I’m the latest model smartphone and you’re a brick phone. Or a house phone.”

Sehun is a house phone. He gapes, speechless. His hand slides down along Baekhyeon’s side and lodges on his hip. He curves his palm around it. It fits so nice. He rubs his thumb over the slight mound where the bone eminences. “Your ass is as flat as the latest model smartphone,” Sehun says emptily. He just has to have a retort. Even if it’s a lie.

Because Baekhyeon’s ass is not flat. It certainly doesn’t appear so. But pants can be deceiving.

“Are you sure about that,” Baekhyeon says, narrowed eyes boring into his. Sehun isn’t ready to be challenged like that, he isn’t ready for Baekhyeon to take his hand from his hip and _slap_ it onto his ass. Fuck. Sehun short circuits.

Baekhyeon chuckles, smears puff after puff of exuberance into his face, all the while he’s still holding Sehun’s palm to his ass. It doesn’t have an exacerbated roundness, but it’s profuse, fleshy, spills readily into the arc and pressure of Sehun’s fingers.

“Yes,” Sehun replies, thoughtlessly.

Baekhyeon gasps, offended. His other hand remained in Sehun’s hair, twisted there, tight and limber at the same time. “I acknowledge the fact that your ass is as full as a brick phone however.”

Sehun pinches his butt, for a mere second, before he lets the plushness melt back into the rest. He fits so well with Sehun. He’s really perfect like that. Instead of voicing that, Sehun chooses to kiss him again, show him. 

This isn’t another trial, Sehun repeats to himself, as he slowly caresses Baekhyeon’s lips with his own. He is allowed to have this. He can get used to this. This heightened physicality Baekhyeon is displaying, all this movement, the grinding of his hips forward, against Sehun’s, as he raises so he can slide the very tip of his tongue over Sehun’s palate before gliding with a swirl along with Sehun’s. His knees tightening on either side of Sehun’s waist, the locking and the force of his forearms to bring him closer, erase all the gaps between them.

Sehun moans, wanting more, daring, daring to bring up Baekhyeon’s tee and glide his palm up Baekhyeon’s back, following the rima of his spine, his other hand remaining down to feel the small amount of softness on his hip. Baekhyeon, whose tongue is swerving along the inner rim of Sehun’s lower lip, shifts back and forth in a sensuous dandle, and grabs it in between both of his lips just as Sehun’s digits press somewhere near his shoulder blade. The muscle is tight, and Sehun isn’t expecting Baekhyeon to be ticklish there of all places, so he’s suddenly yelping and pushing into him, hips and shoulders. Sehun is too wrapped up around Baekhyeon to spare himself a bracing with his elbows, and too startled, so they both topple into the mattress dead-weight. Baekhyeon’s hands manage to attenuate the landing of his head from where they are looped around his neck.  And Sehun is still half kissing him and half laughing, Baekhyeon too, and it’s the messiest, merriest thing. Chuckle for a lick, chuckle for a suck, chuckle for a bite.

Sehun smiles, trying to keep still. It’s both Baekhyeon’s scrutiny and his touch disarming him, making him obedient. The slope of Baekhyeon’s simper suddenly turns _cheeky_ , and panic doesn’t even get to spread through Sehun before Baekhyeon is angling his face and dipping to brush a peck against his lips, a light, evanescent one. And then he goes down, skips over his cheek, under the trimming of his jaw, and goes even lower, innermost, until a wet, big kiss is inscribed on the side of his neck, concluding with a lenitive suckle and a graze of teeth. Sehun shivers, eyes falling shut, his hips buckling up as he tenses against Baekhyeon’s constraint. And Baekhyeon does it again, and again, sloppier, bolder, dappling the skin pink. Sehun’s legs begin tensing, slipping away, and he’s _hard_ , he’s hard as fuck and Baekhyeon _has_ to feel it with how much his erection is bulging through his pants. 

“You’re sitting on my….” Sehun says, hasty, before he does something stupid like grinding his dick against Baekhyeon’s ass. Baekhyeon’s mouth detaches from his neck with a squelch. A kiss is left to cool, and to dry, under Sehun’s ear. He lets go of Sehun’s hands as he raises and peers cutely at him. His eyes are so dark. Sehun fell for these eyes too, on their own. He fell for each individual part of Baekhyeon in turn, and for him as a whole. Now, affection overshadows his arousal.

Baekhyeon frowns, his hips shifting, and Sehun promptly bites his lip because Baekhyeon just grinded down on him. His eyes widen, grow round, his pupils two little dots in a sea of white. His mouth drops open too, left to hang.

Sehun understands that. It may be too much for him. The fact that Sehun is a man. And women have mouths and necks and shoulders and asses too, but not dicks, so it might be startling. Sehun searches for something else to say, but then-

“Ah,” utters Baekhyeon, cheeks curling with a smile. “I forgot you have a dick.” Peck to Sehun’s forehead. “Sorry.” The smile grows big, all teeth and no rim.

“Sorry,” quotes Sehun, so many emotions in it that it comes out flat. Baekhyeon’s simper turns impish, askew. Sehun’s hands are free now, so it takes only a fraction of a moment to settle them on Baekhyeon’s hips and flip them over, kneeling in between his parted legs as he gazes down at him. “Sorry?” Sehun inquires breathlessly.

Baekhyeon writhes out of sheer timidity, the splashes of red on his cheeks intensifying. The halo of messy hair around his head ripples with each of his twists. “Hey, bet you forgot about mine too!”

“No, I didn’t. It’s right-,” pause, boldness, as Sehun slowly slides his pelvis against Baekhyeon’s in the shallowest, lightest graze, erection on erection, “- _here_.” Sehun has to try with all his might to not collapse and squish Baekhyeon from the ruinous shiver running through him at the contact. But it’s gone already, there is distance between their hips now. Baekhyeon’s face is frozen, wiped clean of amusement and plunged into something bedimmed that is so fucking sexy.

He’s hard too, a little, maybe more, if Sehun could see, feel clearly through the clothes. A tenting prominent enough.

Sehun sighs, deeply, quietly, as he realizes that he’s been sheltering this fear too, that maybe being with him wouldn’t turn Baekhyeon on. Would be nothing but mildly pleasant, reservedly pleasant, but at last he wouldn’t be sexually attracted to Sehun.

“Well, yes, it _is_ , uhm-” Baekhyeon speaks, tongue roiled, after string of jittery giggles. “I promise I won’t forget again. Sorry.” He runs his fingers through Sehun’s hair, pushing it away. It’s as gentle as his words. Sehun bends to kiss his pink cheek, right on the apple of it, and for a few seconds, Baekhyeon keeps him there as he cards fingers through his hair. Sehun lets out a little hum out of pure contentment before he slides off him and to the side, landing on his back on the mattress.

Baekhyeon comes closer to him, so they both fit on the bed splayed out like this, limbs over limbs.

They stay like that, touching. Sehun’s fingers search through the sheets until he meets Baekhyeon’s hand. He doesn’t twine their fingers together, but holds, unmindful, comfy. Baekhyeon responds to it.

This is what he wanted, back then, before he broke down in tears. This is what he wanted – Baekhyeon holding his hand, holding _him_ so readily.

They don’t move. They just stay next to each other. It’s weekend and they’re sleepy, and there is, blissfully, no work of any kind waiting to be done.

Baekhyeon yawns - a big mouth, scrunched eyes and scrunched nose. His hand tightens over Sehun’s from the strength of it. It’s too lovable.

“I can’t believe you like me,” Sehun voices, awed.

Baekhyeon turns to him. Drowsy eyes. He closes them, comes closer, climbs a knee over Sehun’s thighs. His forehead touches Sehun’s. “You’ll believe soon.”

A kiss, lips squished together, softly, warmly. Another one, so big and so fuzzy. Blinks and tardy breaths. Heavy eyes, light kisses, heavier eyes, lighter kisses, and then no more kisses as they doze off, one of Baekhyeon’s arms over Sehun’s chest as Sehun holds his hand.

 

 

 

 

 

It must be late into the afternoon when they wake up. They slept a lot. Sehun has the intention to move his numb arm, but Baekhyeon’s head is resting on it. His mouth is parted slightly. It’s not a new sight to wake up next to Baekhyeon, but a first to have him this close, his nose tucked into Sehun’s neck, and their bodies entangled so intimately. He twitches, his cheek crawling up Sehun’s chest before he blinks his eyes open.

A stomach growls. And then the second one.

“I’m hungry apparently,” Baekhyeon mumbles.

Sehun snorts. “Me too, apparently.”

“Now I’m lazy all over again.” Yawn. “Like this day started twice.”

Sehun nuzzles into Baekhyeon’s crown. “It’s better this time,” he says. Because the last time he woke up, and all the times he woke up before this, he didn’t know Baekhyeon liked him back. And there is _nothing_ quite like this feeling.

“It is.” He squeezes at Sehun’s side.

They’re about to doze off again when Baekhyeon screams “Food!” and jumps out of bed, taking Sehun with him.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon doesn’t make art. Baekhyeon just draws.

It’s shapes mostly. Furious, hard lines; textures. And sometimes, representational art. Sehun sees cute things – puppies and chibi figures – and dramatic things, things that are saturated in the ashen grey of the pencil while only particular details are spared some life. Mazes of sorts, floral little bridges between everything, spreading through the whole page and beyond, a garden of nameless structures. He draws everyday details too - a hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, the thorns of an enraged sneer – only the teeth -  pencils, crayons side by side. A water bottle, a shoe, entire landscapes, buildings that are nothing more than the suggestion of their skeletons, and the silhouettes that ghost it. They’re random things, all drawn in an inconsistent style.

Sehun’s eyes got used to it, got used to seeing any sketch, any shady delineation of anything, and not recognize anything about the technique, the personality of a smudge of the ink on the paper. He could pinpoint, however, as the days passed by, as Baekhyeon became closer and closer to him, dearer, that what brands them all as Baekhyeon’s is simply the content. They are exactly the kind of things Baekhyeon would draw. Exactly the kind of things Baekhyeon’s eye would find beauty in.

Sehun had asked him one evening in the park, as he held the Americano cup up to Baekhyeon’s mouth, positioning the straw over his lips, while Baekhyeon had been working on something that, weirdly, required both hands. He hadn’t stilled when Sehun poised the question, if anything, he sped up, the sepia pencil in his hold nicking the paper, while the red pen ran faster, in an erratic, labyrinthine motif. “I just like thinking of things like these,” Baekhyeon had spoken, then licked at the corner of his mouth, where a drop of coffee clung. He swallowed. “Not technical enough to pass as design, not enough sentimentality to really pass as art.” He stopped, put the pencil down, and outstretched his arm towards Sehun. He didn’t have to say it for Sehun to get it and reach to fold the cuff of his shirt once more, so the mess of colour starting to spread on the inside of his forearm didn’t stain it. Sehun did his other arm too. “I really don’t know.” He’d grinned then, laughed even, and kept going.

Baekhyeon goes on, confident, stubborn, even when he has no idea what he’s doing.

Since, Sehun has only thought of Baekhyeon as a thinker. A pretty thinker.

They’re all kept in a ream next to the table in Baekhyeon’s living room. He keeps them in sight. He doesn’t archive them, doesn’t put them in a locker after they’re finished, for they are not a graveyard of forgotten, used ideas, but a collection of living, geminating possibilities. Even though they’re all the same brand, same size, same type, they don’t stack properly. The pages in between the scribbled covers are crumpled, folded, full of other pieces of paper. What they begin with is a date on the first page, and they end with a date on the last one. Sehun picks up the one at the very top.

Baekhyeon finished it yesterday, next to Sehun, a painting done with a makeup brush and hot chocolate from a vending machine, depicting a utopian scenery. Sehun got a chocolate-favoured peck in between strokes.

 Sehun begins leafing through it backwards.

Baekhyeon enters the room, freshly showered. He still looks a bit sleepy, for he called Sehun to come over with mandu right after he woke up from a nap. He’s towelling his hair dry, harshly, in the way Sehun’s been advised to never do it, and he grins at Sehun, elfish, as though he’s been caught doing something _very_ bad. His eyes drop to the sketchbook Sehun is holding, and he doesn’t say anything, nor react in any way. He’s never had any qualms about anyone looking through his work. That’s what its purpose is, for people to see it and to inspire them.

The work he’s on right now has been done a few days before he’s met Sehun near the basketball court. It’s dark, angry. Not the blackest yet. The mood of the drawings shifts through a gradient, Sehun notices. The latest works are lighter, more colourful. He isn’t one to assume this means anything regarding Baekhyeon’s overall mood over this period, but he can’t deny how much more he likes these new ones.

He gazes back at Baekhyeon. His hair is a mess. The whole wet puppy look.

Sehun places the sketchbook in its place before he jogs to Baekhyeon to play with him.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun isn’t Baekhyeon’s guilt. Sehun isn’t Baekhyeon’s curiosity. Sehun isn’t Baekhyeon’s greed.

Baekhyeon likes him for who he is. Baekhyeon just likes Sehun.

And Sehun is falling all over again for a Baekhyeon wanting to prove him all of this. He never dared to hope that such a day will come – a day where he would be on the other side of Baekhyeon’s flirting, his bashfulness. Of being the he person is enamoured with.

He remembers the Hera episode. How gorgeous he was then, how enthusiastic, how _happy_.

All of that is now directed at Sehun, and it is of a beauty so unimaginable that Sehun is falling all over again. It’s nearly as debilitating as when Sehun realized his feeling for Baekhyeon, if not even more so.

It takes time for Sehun to get used to this. It takes time for Sehun to not startle anymore when Baekhyeon pecks him, when he smiles at him like that, when he wants to charm him. It takes time for Sehun to learn to respond to his kisses without any apprehension. It takes time for Sehun to stop fearing, stop expecting Baekhyeon to push him away at any moment.

It takes time for Sehun to have enough confidence to initiate. To be the one to stretch over and kiss Baekhyeon. To touch him. Take his hand.

But it’s happening. It takes time, but Sehun becomes convinced that he is not Baekhyeon’s guilt, nor his curiosity, nor his greed. It takes time, but Sehun begins believing that he has something with Baekhyeon, and that he is cherished back.

 

 

 

 

 

Floriferous bruises, painful and pastel and haphazard loop around Sehun’s neck. As off-handed as the graphite Baekhyeon uses to sign himself with, but on Sehun.

Baekhyeon barely puts down his briefcase before he marches straight to Sehun, his fingers straight to his shirt to unbutton it and pull it away. His gaze slides over what he’s left on Sehun. Considerate.

Sehun loves this glance of his. Focused, intense, but with a touch of reserve. He feels himself blushing, burning up.

“Awww you got shy,” coos Baekhyeon.

He just came home from work, and Sehun did too, getting in just a few minutes before Baekhyeon did, and it’s ridiculous, entirely ridiculous how much power Baekhyeon holds over him, how he can literally revive Sehun with a single glance like this.

“Are you teasing me because I’m in love with you?” Sehun mutters. “Because whose fucking fault is that?”

That soupcon of reflex – the one he displays each and every time Sehun tells him he loves him – appears and disappears, covered in place with mirthful audacity. “What did I even do?” He steps forward, forward, and sits next to Sehun on the sofa. His expectant, challenging face is really cute, but also really sexy and—

“Being perfect.”

Baekhyeon immediately grimaces from the overwhelming amount of corniness, but then he’s also grinning – stupidly wide - before he straight up faceplants into Sehun’s neck.

“Now I know why you do this all the time,” he groans.

Sehun pets his head.

 

 

 

 

 

They have an audience, Sehun senses, belatedly, through the gaps of clarity Baekhyeon allows him. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that keeps building until Sehun parts away from Baekhyeon, opens his eyes, and looks over his shoulder.

Mina is here. Standing. Looking.

Baekhyeon is on his tiptoes, insoles and all, wrapped around him, pilfering a deep kiss from Sehun’s painted mouth. His tongue pushes between them, licking upward, hooking on Sehun’s upper lip, under it, over it, ending with a light, mollescent nip that drags, takes, tugs Sehun deeper into the kiss. Sehun moans, startled, pleasured, he still moans, and Baekhyeon drinks it all up. But he doesn’t come in again, noticing the stiffness of Sehun’s body. He frowns for a second before he turns.

Mina’s gaze always has a mellowness to it, even though her words don’t, but now it is hardened, stony. There’s a camera objective in her hand, fingertips tight and white around it.

“Do you need him right now?” asks Baekhyeon, voice clear, as though he wasn’t talking dirty-sassy to Sehun a minute ago.

She takes a while to answer, fiddling, until it cracks, and she’s back to her usual mien. “I think you need him more,” she says. She stares at Sehun, measuring. “This could be a concept.” Her heeled shoes click on the floor, halt again. “Sex him up well,” she says, then she’s gone.

Baekhyeon snorts. That’s all. He doesn’t say, nor do anything more.

 He turns back to Sehun. The stain that was on Sehun’s lips is now smeared on his too, patchy, glossy, enticing. “She’s right. This could totally be a concept.”

Sehun forgets about it, about them being caught like this, about the implication of that, the very moment Baekhyeon’s mouth is back on his own, the moment Baekhyeon’s arms wind around him again, and all he can do is melt and love.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun doesn’t notice a transition, from friendship with Baekhyeon to something more. Perhaps, it is because they were close enough previously, as close as they could be, and Baekhyeon only had to take the tiniest step forward in order to meld with him. There is a weight, a purpose to the touches, a whirl of kisses, cheesy texts at night, Baekhyeon’s hand on his ass, the smiles he directs at Sehun being the brightest.

He only thinks about it at a dinner party with 76MM.

Sehun ran from work to make it to the venue. A few models, old and new, and some people from other departments attended. A group of fresh faces line the table Sehun is sitting at, next to Baekhyeon, and someone remarks, jokingly, politely, over a sip of beer, how apparent their closeness is.

“We’re very good friends,” Baekhyeon responds, pausing his chewing on an unidentifiable anju. Not chingu, but _jeolchin_ , he uses. Even though there is an age gap between them.

They are. They will always be, hopefully. Close. Jeolchin. Lovers.

The conversation moves on, slips through the clink of glasses, but Baekhyeon, beside him, is still tense. He’s wearing a small frown, contoured by the overhead lamp, the dale under his jaw and his lowered eyes enhanced as he snatches a glance at Sehun. Questioning.

It’s not to tell anyone anything else. But to know for himself.

He puts his tumbler of somaek down, hand then slithering off the table and between them, until Sehun feels cold, thin fingers sliding over his palm. Their fingers tangle, knuckles aligned and fingertips pressing to the backs of their hands. This small act of amore is away from sight, plunged into the dark warmth between them.

This isn’t the place really for anything bigger, louder, but Sehun has known this for sure, for a while. Nothing new. “I’m yours,” he says. It’s not a label, but something that goes beyond any social construct. Baekhyeon, whose eyes are glossy from a mild drunkenness that has him sleepy, peers at him heartily. Serenely.

He nods. His hair unravels a little, bouncing around his face. He needs to trim it, though this whole dishevelled look is very charismatic on him. He smiles then, as always, but shier, and leans into Sehun’s shoulder to dampen a spirant of blessedness.

Sehun’s spoken such big, devout words.

Baekhyeon’s hand clasps tight around Sehun’s. It only lasts for a few moments before the strength in it perishes - he’s that sleepy. 

Sehun picks up Baekhyeon’s somaek glass and gulps down the rest of it fast. Too much soju. Baekhyeon rushes to dulcify his grimace by pressing fingers high up on his inner thigh and whispering reverently into his ear, “My prince.”

Sehun doesn’t doubt that the alcohol in his system has nothing to do with the overwhelming warmth and vim in his body.

 

 

 

 

 

They kiss. Often, hard. It starts unintentionally most of the times, accidentally. Baekhyeon was just close. He was pouting. He was talking. He was doing nothing. And Sehun just _wants_ so much.

When Baekhyeon is the one who initiates it, it’s also out of nothing. A gaze - the way Sehun looks at him is nothing short of enticing, irresistible, he says. Simple nearness. Sehun’s head on his shoulder. Sehun just being there.  

There aren’t casual kisses, somehow, no incurious kisses; there are only kisses that end with Baekhyeon on top of him, with Sehun pressed to a wall, limbs intertwisted, moaning, needing.

Sehun notices, after a while, that all of these moments have a peak, a threshold after which Baekhyeon stalls. Not stopping, but there is no progression anymore.

He never grinds against Sehun, never touches Sehun under his clothes. At most, he places his hands on Sehun’s bare hips when his shirt rides up. Sehun is aroused, noticeably so, and Baekhyeon is too. It’s not given away just by the outline of his cock poking through his pants, nor from how wet he is already, but also through the way he clings to Baekhyeon, fully, his kisses covetous and profound.

At this point, Baekhyeon slows down, lessens the pressure. This happens each time, and this is a predicament they find themselves in quite often.

Sehun would not question it if it wasn’t for the fact that Baekhyeon seems dizzy from want sometimes, has such reluctance to let him go, each of his pants turned into a groan.

Sehun thinks he’s doing it right – the way he touches him, kisses him, holds him. It can’t be that he’s not enjoying it, that Sehun is doing something wrong. Yet he stalls, at last, decelerates, even as his mouth is red and parted as Sehun lavishes the skin of his tongue, even as Sehun offers him friction – not even for himself – but for his hard cock to drag along Sehun’s hip. It’s all to pleasure him, not himself.

Baekhyeon moans at the contact, fingertips pressing into Sehun’s scalp, and he pulls away.

“Is it…” begins Sehun, half lost in the dwindling tempo of their make out. His neck is already cold, the kisses Baekhyeon placed on it long withered. “You’re not…” he croaks out – more distance, Baekhyeon is even farther away. Even farther. “You don’t want me like that?” Sehun asks, voice broken. “You don’t want me to touch you like that?”

He’s panicking over this. He’s panicking, because this is a matter to panic over. Because he knows for a fact that Baekhyeon has a high sex drive, that he needs bounteous appeasement of this nature, and Sehun is already thinking that maybe he cannot satisfy him like that, that he cannot offer him that. It can be that he likes Sehun, gets aroused from making out with him, but still not want to get involved with him like that, not find this prospect attractive. Maybe the idea of having sex with Sehun is intimidating, maybe it’s unexciting, maybe he thinks it’s dirty – and Sehun is panicking, first and foremost, over the fact that this is big enough of a deal to break them. It’s not something small, even though at this point in their new development it doesn’t seem like much. It’s still a luxation. It will get bigger and bigger over time and it will mature into an acute dissatisfaction that can, sooner rather than later, break them.

Sehun wouldn’t stop him from having sex with someone else if he doesn’t want to do it with him – he would never deny Baekhyeon this, would never keep something of such importance from him. If they went that route, Sehun reckons it would lead to the same result. Out of all the people Baekhyeon would bed, one of them is bound to be to his liking, and he would fall into an infatuation set off by sexual compatibility. He wouldn’t want Sehun anymore when he could be with someone who doesn’t have the shortcoming of being a man, and who could offer him exactly what he wants.

It hurts to even think about, only a slight smear compared to the pain he’d felt that day when he cried, and even this hits him hard enough that it threatens to bring him to tears again. He’s dizzy, from the lack of air from the kiss, and the thoughts twirling around his mind, scraping, ripping.  

He can’t even peer at Baekhyeon, afraid that his eyes will be pleading for an answer that Baekhyeon will falsify out of pity.

This doesn’t matter very much to Sehun, truly. Whether he gets to be intimate with Baekhyeon or not will have no effect whatsoever on the strength of his devotion.

It’s not the same for Baekhyeon. He wants sex, but not with Sehun, not with him-

He finally lifts his head and looks at Baekhyeon.

In his lust-blown eyes, Sehun sees the words being processed, turned over and over. Then it clicks, and Baekhyeon is back to embracing him. Tight. Impassioned. “No. No,” he says, hasty, like he doesn’t even have enough breath in himself to say it as loud and as zealous as he needs. “No.” Another kiss, enforcing. “No, of course not. It’s just—“

He halts. Sehun’s heart stops along with it. He wishes that Baekhyeon would say it faster – the apprehension is unendurable. Corpulent.

Baekhyeon’s hands run up and down Sehun’s back, dallying at his nape. “It wouldn’t be just sex to you, would it?” he speaks tepidly into Sehun’s ear. “I know it wouldn’t.”

Sehun swallows, sighs out – partly relieved, and nods into Baekhyeon’s chest. His heartrate is rapid.

It wouldn’t be, indeed. It sounds like a small distinction, but it isn’t. To Sehun, it feels massive.

“You’d be making love to me.” Pause, stutters, and Baekhyeon doesn’t say it. Cannot say it. It’s a physical struggle.

“Which wouldn’t be the case to you,” says Sehun in his place, as it dawns on him.

He expected it to hurt, but it doesn’t. Compared to all the reasons Sehun has made up in his mind, this is… wonderful. He only feels cared for.

“I’ve been unfair to you so long enough already. No need for more,” Baekhyeon murmurs. A kiss at Sehun’s temple.

Because it’s not plain significs. Baekhyeon wants to want _him_ , not his body, wants to want _him_ , not as a means to satiate transitory sexual need.

Still, Sehun needs a bit more assurance. “Is it just this?” he asks, afflicted. “You’re not…I mean. You want to be like that with me, right?”

The reply comes fast, and hot, in the form of an open-mouthed kiss to his neck, and one more, one more, one more, until it closes on his ear lobe. “Don’t question that when I’m like this with you. Don’t forget how well you know me. You know I wouldn’t be like this with you if I didn’t. You know I wouldn’t toy with you. And you can tell act from what’s real, can’t you? You’ve seen me lying to myself for so long. You can tell that—“

“I can. I can, I’m sorry,” Sehun says. Baekhyeon sounds as panicked as he is. He sounds as affected as he is. And _this_ placates him the most. “It’s just that it’s still so hard to believe that you even like me. When you touch me it’s even more unbelievable, and when you kiss me too and…” It keeps happening. It doesn’t go away. Sehun is too used to this, to not having him, and it’s truly hard for him to accept that Baekhyeon wants him, that they’re together. It hits him hard even when Baekhyeon does as much as back-hug him.

He’s being blinded by that. He’s being blinded by his own uncertainty.

Baekhyeon nods, “I like you. And I want to kiss you. And I want to touch you. And I want to be with you like that,” he says, rare and crystal-clear, so that Sehun is given no other choice but to believe him.

Sehun snuggles into him, lax and comfortable. “Why do you have to be so…” He slides his nose against Baekhyeon’s neck. He jerks, a little yelp in his throat. “So you’re blue balling me in the name of love.”

Baekhyeon laughs, quaking with Sehun in his arms. He rearranges his legs so he’s straddling Sehun again. “I’m— “he says, then thrusts up against Sehun, crotch against crotch, close and hard enough that there is no mistaking how hard he is “—blue balling myself too.”

Sehun chokes out a whimper. “I um, get your point,” he says. Baekhyeon’s hips are away from his now, but his twitters are still ringing in Sehun’s ear.

“It’ll happen. I promise it’ll happen.”

Little details. The bed thing. This thing. Little Baekhyeon sensibilities.

Sehun peppers kisses wherever he can reach, until Baekhyeon helms him and lets him meet his mouth again.

There are other things they do instead.

They pick up another cooking project - sujebi this time, just because it seems super hard and they can do it, they won’t give up, they will succeed. They make dough themselves, and it gets sticky and flour does, in fact, fly everywhere by its own volition because Sehun swears all he did was put some in a bowl.

They play with clothes, Baekhyeon wanting to dress him up, make him pose. They clean while shouting pick-up lines from one room to the other, sponges and mops in hand. They dance in the living room, music turned high, them tipsy, doing the slow, couple-y sway they could never do in a club. Baekhyeon trying to draw him, making him sit still for hours, and the result it not a caricature, but an incredible portrait that nearly brings Sehun to tears. Going together to the gym, where Baekhyeon does nothing but shamelessly ogle Sehun and make the cringiest, lewdest comments. Sehun laughs so hard that he almost drops a dumbbell. They attempt couple yoga at the end, which turns into a very funny disaster and not a single broken bone. And some nights, when they are both too tired to talk much, offer more, they pile on top of each other, Baekhyeon hiding into him, and Sehun petting his hair, exchanging meaningless murmurs until they drift off.

There are many things that they do that bring them closer, things that amass and assure Sehun that, some day, they’ll be making love.

 

 

 

 

The bench hasn’t been painted over yet. Sehun’s scribble of his own name is still crisp on the plank. The tree next to it has grown, however, it’s puddle of shade wider. There are no books around anymore, and Baekhyeon isn’t sad and Sehun isn’t aimless.

It’s a good time to be back here. It’s late enough that the air is breathable. After a whole day of engaging in standard estival endeavours of doing nothing but complain about the heat and squint and starfish and wish for winter, Sehun took Baekhyeon out so they can do all of that on a bench instead.

Baekhyeon is wearing mesh, his hair tied up, a frame of sweat around his hairline. Sunglasses too, big ones, so that Sehun can’t see anything beside his lips. They slump over one another, just being lazy on a weekend. They deserve to be lazy.

Sehun has his pinky twined with Baekhyeon’s. “It’s too hot to hold hands entirely,” Baekhyeon whined. But Baekhyeon also has both legs slung over Sehun’s lap and Sehun’s other hand is on his hip and they’re touching everywhere anyway.

Sehun catches one look. Then another one. And another one. People are looking at them. Weird. Baleful Glares, frowns. They slow down as they pass right by them, stare, focus, scowl afterwards.

The alley they’re on is a fairly secluded artery of the park, but still, it’s a weekend evening, and it’s full. Sehun counts and counts and counts the negative reactions that they get. It’s still a small percentage, he knows, rationally, he knows, out of the hundreds of people who passed by already only a few showed disdain, but –

“They’ll always look at us like that,” he says. He doesn’t say like what. He can’t bring himself to articulate that.

Baekhyeon tightens his legs over Sehun, brings himself a little closer. At last, he takes Sehun’s whole hand.

He’s quiet. He paints deep breaths onto Sehun’s neck. Sehun can distinguish them individually until a gust of wind passes by and mixes with them.

The spot where he’s keeping the mini Hite can on Sehun’s thigh feels suddenly way too cold.

“We are though,” Baekhyeon says, picking up the can and slurping a sip. Sehun can hear the fret of the bubbles inside, his little intake of breath afterwards.  The void of sadness is already clawing at Sehun, shredding through him. Baekhyeon swallows. Sehun hears that too, and mirrors it. “We are disgusting. We’ve been sweating all day. We’re sticky and smelly.”

“But,” starts Sehun, unsure, or sure, he doesn’t know. “You can be…not disgusting. You can be...not with me.” Maybe if they lived in another country, under different social criteria, he wouldn’t have to think about this. But they’re not, and here, what they are is not that welcome. The life of a man in a homosexual relationship is vastly different from the life of a man in a heterosexual one. And Sehun, his involvement, is robbing him of peace and normalcy before throwing him in a dense cluster of problems, of discrimination and nastiness. Before he has to suffer through all the erosion that comes with liking someone of the same sex, Sehun has to remind him of what he’s getting into.  

“I don’t want to be disgusting with anyone else.”

A fly comes to sit on his hand. Black. It makes less contrast with his skin from the slight tan he has. He always forgets to put sunscreen on his hands too. The fly walks over his skin, along a finger, and traverses onto Baekhyeon’s hand through the bridge of the pinkies they have still curled. Then it flies off.   

“Baekhyeon-ah,” Sehun speaks, wan, but exasperate. He cannot be so aloof about this. So reckless.

Baekhyeon shifts. He slides his glasses onto his head, and turns to him. Blinks. Concern. “Do you feel like that? Do you feel disgusted by yourself?”

No, no he’s not. He tries to tell himself that he shouldn’t be. Even though there are the looks, and then that he’s still kind of expected to have a family anyway, that this preference is some sort of joke, something not serious, something not fundamental. “No. I’m just. I’m just sorry.”

“For liking me?”

Silence. Silence everywhere. Sehun cannot formulate a thought, an answer. Sehun waits for all this blankness to wear off, to dissipate, all the while holding Baekhyeon’s gaze, and letting this gaze, soft and calm, to embrace him. At the end, all he has is a meek “Yes.”

He’s hurt. Sehun reads it immediately. He’s hurt. It lasts for a snip of a moment before Baekhyeon is putting the can way and then hopping to straddle Sehun on the bench. He places both of his hands on Baekhyeon’s waist. Not with the goal of touching, but grasping, making sure he doesn’t fall. If he could do that by other means other than touching him –

Baekhyeon looks at him. “There have been people who liked me in the past. Some loved me too.” Sehun knows. Sehun is aware. Falling in love with Baekhyeon is the easiest thing. “And I haven’t felt it from any of them. I haven’t felt a thing.”

It’s a sonance he’s never heard before from Baekhyeon, of a warmhearted firmness. “And from me?”

Baekhyeon curls palms around Sehun’s neck and the sides of his face. He leans in and presses his lips to Sehun’s forehead. And holds. Holds until Sehun’s arms stop shaking. “Thank you.” Another kiss. “If you knew how much this means to me. If you knew how much it means to me that I can feel it too.” Another one, even longer, needier. “Don’t be sorry, Sehun-ah.”

A small part of him believes that he somehow persuaded Baekhyeon into this. He said himself that he never thought about being with a man before. Before Sehun. So it feels like a lot to make Baekhyeon swing into this lane, which promises a slightly harder life, than if he just let him be, without confessing, maybe to find a woman that he likes and live a life with her.

Sehun sighs, feeling powerless, feeling too big and too heavy. He leans down until his forehead touches Baekhyeon’s chest, and he stays like this for a while. “Will you be okay? Still with me?” he asks. His voice won’t grow stronger than this.

Baekhyeon’s fingers card through his hair. “Sure,” he says. “Of course.”

Sehun lifts his head and places a peck on Baekhyeon’s collarbone on the way just because it’s there. He peers at Baekhyeon. “You haven’t heard anything since Mina caught us? No gossip?” It’s the only incident that comes to mind. He fretted over this. He hasn’t passed by 76MM since then, and there is bound for something to be leaked, be heard. There are plenty of things they skimmed on and put on the account of their super close comradery, but a make-out doesn’t fit in this category.

Baekhyeon brushes his bangs away when a rush of wind brings them into Sehun’s eyes. “ _Caught_ us?” Baekhyeon repeats, as frail as the wind. But there is a coating of – of disappointment. He presses fingers to Sehun’s chin, making sure Sehun can’t look anywhere but into his eyes. “Were we doing something wrong?”

“No,” Sehun breathes out promptly, confidently. He cannot fathom a kiss from Baekhyeon, affection from Baekhyeon ever being something wrong.

“She interrupted us. Think of it like that.”

Interruption. They were in Baekhyeon’s office, door closed, during the lunch break. The kiss started because of Baekhyeon pouting, _hard_ , when he accidentally spilled his coffee over his sketch, and Sehun couldn’t resist that.

Interruption. Nothing wrong.

“Don’t hide me,” Baekhyeon whispers.

The words wrap around him like barbed wire, lacerate him, and he winds his arms around Baekhyeon at once, hugs him, hugs him close, so close. “I won’t hide you, I promise, I promise. Never.” And then calmer, slower. “I love you. So much.” Sehun will never tire of saying this.

Baekhyeon chuckles, and he holds Sehun close just as tight, his arms flexed around Sehun’s shoulders. This laughter that only comes out when he’s too elated to think of a response. Sehun loves it when he gives Baekhyeon this kind of happiness.

“How are you more comfortable with this than I am,” Sehun says, running his hand up and down Baekhyeon’s back. There should be disbelief, but there isn’t. It’s something he’s anticipated from Baekhyeon, with how mature he is, how compassionate. Sehun has never felt this cared for, this treasured. Just like Baekhyeon hasn’t.

“Maybe I’m just _that_ into you,” Baekhyeon replies.

“Maybe you are.”

“Maybe I am,” Baekhyeon says, louder, sassier, as he pulls away to squint at Sehun, for he _has_ to have the last word. A jiffy later, he’s surging forward and planting the sloppiest, rowdiest kiss on Sehun’s cheek. Suck and tongue. The cinder of it is left cherry on his skin. Baekhyeon looks _so_ proud of what he’s done.

Sehun does it back.

It’s with the corner of his eye that he catches the two male students passing by, looking at each other with big eyes and glowers as they reach them. An elderly woman is behind, walking slothfully with her cane, and she has about the same expression, accentuated by the folds of her skin. But her gaze is persistent, blunt.

Baekhyeon looks in the same direction Sehun is before he turns back to him with a mischievous grin. “I’ll shove my tongue down your throat to see if she pukes. _Right now_. It’ll be fun.” And this is all the warning Sehun gets before Baekhyeon proceeds to do _just_ that.

Maybe they are still looking. Still glaring, but Sehun’s been blind for a while already. Sehun sees nothing but Baekhyeon anyway. Feels nothing but Baekhyeon anyway.

He cups Baekhyeon’s jaw and kisses back with all he’s got.

 

 

 

 

 

Argent strobes over his cheeks. All the high points, all the divots are emphasized, impressed for Sehun to see exactly, intimately, just how happy Baekhyeon is right now.

He chased Sehun down in the club, played coy, played silly, only to grab him and drag him into the abysm of his allure. He approached Sehun with leers and hip rolls. Not too bold. Not too showy. He didn’t need to conquer Sehun. He already had him.

He’s enamoured with this. With how explicit his focus is on Sehun. Solely on Sehun. His eyes don’t stray from him at all. They’re there, constant, lenient and black and beautiful as they see _only_ Sehun.

He’s laughing, just because, and Sehun is laughing too, just because, as they sway quite clumsily to the strident music.

“Come home with me, baby,” Baekhyeon whispers into his ear, peals of giggles later. His line. His stupid line that he uses on everyone. Except now it’s vivid, genuine, breathy, wrecked and impatient and Sehun stumbles over himself to agree, to get them out of here.

 

 

 

 

 

They tumble home, Sehun’s perchance, up the stairs, stopping at the end of each flight, at each wall, for Baekhyeon to tug at him, put the slightest kiss to his lips and taste the desiccated sting of alcohol. It takes a while before they reach the rooftop. They’re interknitted and staggering. Sehun fiddles with the key from under the pot before they’re in, the key drops to the floor, and Baekhyeon grabs him properly, hooks fingers in Sehun’s belt loops and gets him close, presses up against him. There is only the leftover light of Seoul’s skyline seeping through the uneven glass of the door, and the opaque gaze of Baekhyeon on him. There are the peaks of his cheeks lined with radiance. Too beautiful. Sehun kisses him, still fleeting and light and tickly.

Baekhyeon walks with him, backwards, not putting space between them, until he perches himself on the small step demarcating the foyer from the rest of the room. He’s higher now, closer, but he still has to get on his tip toes to drape his arms over Sehun’s shoulders.

“Who are you?” Baekhyeon asks suddenly, halfway to getting a kiss. The syrupy memoir of strawberry from his drink lingers in the cracks of his lips. Sehun can’t wait to lick them.

 He makes that face, when he’s aware of the corniness of his own words.

“Sehun,” he responds, absentminded, for Baekhyeon’s mouth is right _here_ , and his hips slotted with his own.

“No,” Baekhyeon tuts, cupping his neck, making them lock eyes.

“Then? Who am I?”

“My boyfriend,” Baekhyeon says, mellow, before he twitters, childlike, adorable, and Sehun melts and melts and melts until he drops onto Baekhyeon and they have to shuffle backwards until they hit some sort of surface. He presses his face into Baekhyeon’s neck.

“Your boyfriend,” Sehun repeats, friable with disbelief. Tides of beatitude wash over him, cumulate, cumulate and flourish, until Sehun does believe it, does acknowledge it. “Your boyfriend.” Sehun curls himself around him, threads his body with Baekhyeon’s until his arms rattle from the force before he pulls back, seeks Baekhyeon’s eyes.

“What about you? Who are you?”

And of course Baekhyeon plays dumb, widens his eyes and confidently says, “Baekhyeon.” A pause for the act to drop and to be painted over with fondness. He simpers and slides one of his hands down Sehun’s back. “Your boyfriend Baekhyeon. If you’ll have me.”

Sehun would like to playful too, about this. But he can’t. All he can do is say yes, yes yes, all he can do is kiss him, glad and tender, have him as he’s being given. “I’ll have _all_ of you,” he musters after a while of hugging him, of keeping him as close as possible.

He starts with Baekhyeon’s neck – beautiful, willowy, responsive. The relief of it is pronounced. Everything that’s under the skin eminent through it, coated with lights and shadows.  Sehun has hollows to kiss, acclivities, move his mouth from place to place and pull the supple flesh into his mouth, atone it with a lick, a peck on top, a glide of parted lips as he wanders. He feels it right then, right beneath his tongue, the passing of Baekhyeon’s moan through his neck, the vibration of it coinciding with the summit of Sehun inking a pale bruise under his ear.

Baekhyeon doesn’t pull at him, doesn’t rush him. He just makes sure they’re touching, constantly, everywhere, and lets his head fall to the side, makes room for Sehun, until Sehun has to emerge for air, has to emerge for air and suck some through Baekhyeon’s open lips.

“You’re so sexy,” Baekhyeon breathes, simply breathes, all need and no articulation. “You’re sexy as fuck, boyfriend,” he continues as his palms slide down Sehun’s sides until they reach his hips. Baekhyeon distracts him with a kiss as he lowers them more and rounds his hands around Sehun’s ass. He squeezes, fingers spread wide and strong, iterant, pulls to spread the cheeks apart, kneads. Sehun moans, collapses into Baekhyeon, falls into his kiss, touches back, giddy, aroused, kisses Baekhyeon once more once more once more.

“So sexy,” Baekhyeon says, husky. “Your hair. Wanted to bury my hands in it all night long. And your ass and your back and your shoulders.” He’s grasping at Sehun, hands that seem to search for a lifeline, that dig to mar. “ _Fuck_. How are you so sexy all of a sudden? How am I just seeing all of this now?”

Sehun cannot reply, for brusquely, deeply, Baekhyeon’s mouth tangles with his, all that praise, all that deranging praise being told yet again by the swipes of his tongue over Sehun’s.

“Do you say this to everyone?”

“No.” Kiss, tongue, suck, words. “Because they aren’t. Not like you. No one is as sexy as you are.”

“Fuck I love you talking to me like this.” A shiver interrupts him. “Can’t wait to suck your cock,” moans Sehun, too turned on to modulate himself. He can feel the seams of his pants cutting into his dick, leaving painful runnels.

“Yes. _Yes_.”

Sehun takes off Baekhyeon’s thin overcoat, leaving it to pool at his feet. He winds his arms around Baekhyeon’s waist, following the path around the dip of his spine before he cups his ass too. It brings them closer, much closer, the protrusion of Baekhyeon’s clothed arousal pressing up against Sehun’s. He chokes a little moan into Sehun’s mouth, pushing his ass suddenly into Sehun’s hands, demanding to be gripped with force, played with. Sehun complies. Sehun fondles Baekhyeon’s ass until there is a constant stream of moans cloying his breathing, until Sehun’s palms burn from rubbing over the fabric of Baekhyeon’s pants. And then, in a lull, Baekhyeon jumps, his legs twining right around Sehun’s waist. He’s light, buoyant, giggling into Sehun’s surprised face before they kiss again, twirl around a few times until Sehun finds the kitchen counter to place Baekhyeon on.

Sehun opens a few buttons of Baekhyeon’s shirt. He takes the time to undo the tie and the metal lattice from around his collar and put them both carefully to the side because he wouldn’t want to mistreat any of Baekhyeon’s precious adornments. Then he’s going down, seeking inlet from his ear down, passing the scope of his neck with an open mouth and little pecks, caresses that are slightly damp. As he descends, bares more skin, buttons slipping through one by one and now Sehun sees more, tastes more, can antedate the drift of his hands with his lips. Sehun steers to the side, over the small elevation of his chest, and climbing over the pectoral and licking over his nipple. It’s soft, uninterested, a cushiony give to it, for just one lick, one suck, before it hardens, and Sehun feels the texture of it on his tongue.

“Oh, that’s -” sighs Baekhyeon, trembling, his feet hitting the drawer under. “ _Oh_.”

Sehun has a hand splayed on Baekhyeon’s neck, his fingers on his nape, enveloping, to keep him still, as he licks it again, fast, athirst. The taste of his skin is pale, barely there, but it still has Sehun’s mouth watering. Baekhyeon is into it, for the small breaths he’s huffing out are tinted, coloured by slips of his voice through, sounds that are puppy-like, chipped and low and gorgeous. Sehun licks at his nipple, sucks until the roundness of his open lips align with the rim of the areolae, and his tongue wears that numbed, warmed feeling caused by the friction. Baekhyeon’s hands twist in his hair. He offers a tug when Sehun bites, allows some teeth, light and slippery from all the spit. He switches to the other one, does the same, the very same, but faster now, better even, for Baekhyeon is already kindled for him, the nipple hard before he even presses his tongue to it.

And then he’s back, Baekhyeon is taking him back, presses his lips to Sehun’s, and licks, licks thoroughly into Sehun’s mouth, esurient and deep, with slow strokes.

“Do that again to me sometime, please,” Baekhyeon breaks off, speaks, touches Sehun.

“So you liked it,” Sehun says, bending to pull off Baekhyeon’s socks, because this is not a time to be wearing socks. Or to be wearing anything really. “I was just taking a risk.” He really had no idea if Baekhyeon would be sensitive there at all.

“Yeah. Yes. Please, more. I’ll do yours too.”

“Please, yeah. But later.”

“Yes,” he murmurs, grasping at Sehun’s waist. His knees are there too, squeezing on either side of him, as Sehun bends to kiss him, to feel him. Sehun notices the tension of his forearm, his bicep, his shoulder, as he holds onto Sehun. Not digging, but rigid, locked, occasionally pulling at his clothes. He’s putting so much force into this. So much want.

Sehun groan and abruptly tugs Baekhyeon forwards, into himself, winds his arms around his back and lifts him up. Baekhyeon is the one surprised this time, a yelp and a giggle, as he clutches at Sehun’s shoulders. He squeals too, in delight now, as Sehun carries him through the room. Sehun almost doesn’t feel the weight of him, just a lightness from having Baekhyeon clinging onto him for dear life. He can’t see anything because of the darkness, and from Baekhyeon being in his face, but he doesn’t miss the bed by much, just hits his shin on the frame, and rests a knee on the mattress to lay Baekhyeon down.

He’s wearing some strange slacks that have drawstrings, and Sehun is all too happy about that, about taking so little to undo them and having them slide down and off his legs so easily. Sehun stops, catches his breath, _looks_. Splayed out, messy on top of the messy sheets. There is a slice of light, yellow, that falls through the window beside the bed. It highlights only a part of Baekhyeon, the rest of him lost to shade. Baekhyeon is tan, his arms, his neck, places where his clothes usually don’t cover, but his legs are fair, just a faint coloration around his knees, but otherwise even, pretty. Sehun steps closer, leans in over him, eyes traveling right by the illuminated patch of skin. It’s thin enough, pale enough that he can see a few veins under the surface, watercolour blues, before Baekhyeon grabs at him again, chases him to finish that torn kiss, impatient.

Baekhyeon twists them, licks at his neck, twists them again, kisses him again, and nearly falls off the bed. Sehun manages to catch his leg, his thigh, bring him back and in. He curls the leg around Sehun’s waist, his calf across the small of Sehun’s back. Sehun liberally palms the breadth of his thigh, the noticeable seams of the muscles, drifting down, going over the slight coarseness of his skin given by thin hairs until it runs smooth, fleshy, as he slips his fingers underneath the fabric of his underwear to cup his ass. Baekhyeon pushes his hips up, glides a peck to the side of Sehun’s jaw. He kneads the fullness gathered in his hand, squeezes at it roughly, in proportion with Baekhyeon’s responsiveness to it, the twitches of his hips and the messy kisses. He lines his thumb with the crevice between his legs, swipes It along until he meets the delicate skin of his sack, before he slips his hand out from his underwear entirely, and cups his balls, his cock over it. Baekhyeon lets out a gasp, an aerial little one, his eyes widening.

Sehun pulls back to link his gaze with Baekhyeon’s. There is only a sliver of light by his cheek, that’s all, yet there’s a bright shine to his eyes, twinkling with each of his blinks. Sehun smiles, endeared, before he moves his hand, runs the heel of it along Baekhyeon’s length. He bows down to engrave another kiss to his neck, then going down, a peck, puckered lips fitting in the rounded, tiny hollow between his collarbones. Lower, the rift of his sternum. He yanks at the band of Baekhyeon’s underwear, insists until it climbs up his thighs without him lifting his hips. Blind, Sehun glides his hand over skin, lightly, feeling the shape of him.

There’s a quake in Baekhyeon’s chest that Sehun tastes with his lips. He moves back up, back to his neck, over it, over the point of his chin, and finally to his mouth as he wreaths tentative fingers around his cock. Baekhyeon gasps, keeps gasping as Sehun’s hand gets used to him, to the startlingly natural slotting of the thickness in between the arch of his thumb and his index, the wrap of his palm around the hot shaft. There are pulses, strong, intermittent, Baekhyeon’s pulse, felt so well through the skin, the braiding of veins going along it. He’s peering at Sehun, donning the same nuance, opaque, solid, but with a gloss, as when he was blind to Sehun, when he didn’t care about him like that. It’s similar, technically, but not. Not at all, not with the state he is in, writhing and moaning, stretched out by pleasure as Sehun works him with tight strokes.

He pulls off, grudgingly, as Baekhyeon is keeping him into his kiss with a bite, but only far enough to get rid of Baekhyeon’s underwear, slide it off his svelte legs and lose it through the sheets. Baekhyeon shifts, slides lower onto the bed, and parts his thighs. His hips fit right under the light now. Skin aglow from the warm beams, dips outlined by ponds of shadow, and a stripe of indents left by the elastic of his boxers. Higher up, his shirt, held together by the last three buttons, wrinkled and pulled. It’s this space, this rounded expanse from a little above his belly button to the low mound of his pubis, the two little hills of his hip bones, and the inward dips that mark the start of his thighs that Sehun can’t take his eyes off of, nor his hands. He follows the cupping of his palms with his gaze, moulding them to the curves, and slowing down as he gets nearer to his cock. The hairs above it are fine, something Sehun has always suspected, given the characteristics of his body, and neat too, short, a little patch of background for the arch of his cock. It’s a pretty dick, of course, Sehun expected that too. In proportion and shape and colour, but there is also something strangely enticing, something that is far from prettiness about the thickness, the accentuated vascularization, the lambent redness, the gap separating the corona from the shaft, how stretched and smooth the foreskin appears.

His thighs contract, squeeze around Sehun, and he follows the tell-tale dents of the muscle vining up from his knees until his gaze is back on his cock in time to catch the shine of another drop of precome leaking from his cock, tumbling slow and thin down his slit and marking his belly. Sehun can’t wait to get his mouth around him. But he slides up, one more time, to peck his lips. It’s always there, this want to kiss Baekhyeon, an incessant urge that eclipses everything. 

From the moment Sehun touches Baekhyeon with his lips, he knows nothing but iterance, assortments that work, going haywire from his own building excitement, from Baekhyeon’s moans, and the grabbing of his legs around him. Begin with a kiss, glide down, swallow, caress until he runs out of air, until his throat tickles, go back up, hand following closely, suck on the tip.

He lets go this time, takes his hands away and slides them over Baekhyeon’s hips, as he lowers himself onto the length, sinking till the corners of his lips sting and the head of his cock fills the back of Sehun’s throat. Baekhyeon’s thighs tense, lift, and he moans, whines, and Sehun feels a hand settling over his own, taking it, and keeping it there, on Baekhyeon’s stomach, while he rubs at the back of it with his thumb. Among the lingering sighs of repletion, Baekhyeon gives him praise too, equally incoherent and husky, equally melodious, so Sehun can ignore all the discomfort, the amalgam of aches, and let himself be led by want. Baekhyeon, holding onto his hand, bucking, babbling.  Sehun has never felt like this, so turned on that he’s lightheaded, so turned on that that everything Baekhyeon says, everything he does, no matter how insignificant, will be added, will make his cock leak and pulse with such strength.

Overwhelmed, Sehun pulls off, lets Baekhyeon’s cock slip out of his mouth. He instantly misses the weight of him on his tongue – there’s a lightness that he finds jarring. But he has to regulate his breathing, has to look at Baekhyeon. He sees the rise and fall of his stomach, fluttering, skin relaxed and ductile until it meets the eminent border of his thorax. Sehun licks his lips, looking to clean up the mess of saliva on them. Baekhyeon’s eyes follow the motion. Befog. It’s all the invitation he needs to surge up and kiss him, make Baekhyeon take care of him, lick him clean, slide his lips against Sehun’s and soothe the rawness of them. Sehun still doesn’t forget about his cock, and uses his free hand to stroke him, base to tip, but lightly, skimping on what offers ample stimulation and focusing on all the places where Baekhyeon’s skin is thin and silken, sensitive, makes him tremble, but doesn’t contribute to the upwelling of his arousal, but rather keeps it steadfast, keeps him there, wanting, needy. He jerks, thrusts into Sehun’s closed hand as he nips at Sehun’s lips. Sehun lets him, just for a while longer, only for his impatience to reach a climax, before he abides back in his place, face between Baekhyeon’s legs, and takes him into his mouth.

It’s still uncomfortable, but never has Sehun been so keen on pleasing, on making sure the quake of Baekhyeon’s thighs is relentless, and his hips push and his hands weave into Sehun’s hair. Gentle, though, lots of strands in his grasp so he can pull without hurting Sehun, can guide him as he wants, and all Sehun feels is Baekhyeon’s desperation.

The giving texture of the head, and the shifty, fluid movement of the skin over the shaft, the embossment of runnels of the veins, and the mould of his tongue on the underside, the slim tubular formation fitting in the flexure of his tongue. Sehun memorizes everything, and the response to each of his ministrations, learns it, revels in it.

He may be moaning. It’s hard to breathe, hard to coordinate himself around it, he just knows that all the breaths scanty breaths he takes in are exhaled haphazardly and accented with the vibration of his chest. It dazes him, all the wetness and intrusiveness, and Baekhyeon, Baekhyeon is groaning and writhing and holding his hand, whilst the other one is in his hair, as Sehun wanted. It’s at a slight push that makes Sehun swallow so much more, gag and tear up, and Baekhyeon moans, lifts, Sehun can feel the bowing of his stomach under his hand, the ripples of the mattress as he falls back down, jerks again, and does these crisp, precise thrusts that have the underside of the head of his cock rubbing right on the hill of Sehun’s tensed tongue, the tip over the palate. This is comfortable for Sehun, he can catch a breath, his throat doesn’t spasm, and it’s also so fucking hot that Baekhyeon is so into this that he cannot even be careful anymore, and fuck into Sehun’s mouth while he holds his head in place.

He doesn’t get any warning, or maybe he just doesn’t perceive a shift in Baekhyeon’s thrashing, all he gets is a bit of withdrawal of Baekhyeon’s cock, only enough so the spill of come doesn’t go directly down his throat. Instead, it wells behind his teeth and over his tongue, glazing the whole of his mouth with sticky piquancy. Sehun keeps on sucking, encourages the spurting, feeling the convulsions going through the length. Baekhyeon has gone silent, not breathing, not moaning, but moving, the insides of his thighs, soft, plush, caging Sehun’s head until he goes lax, the tension dissolves and the hardness of his cock lessens, stops filling Sehun’s mouth like this, stops being pressure.

Sehun lets go of him and raises. He swallows it all, and licks his lips clean. The very last hues of the taste are left, and a texture, at thickness in his throat that it makes him feel proud, so proud actually, to be used like this for Baekhyeon’s pleasure. He stares at Baekhyeon, draped in darkness, boneless and panting, exhales stained with the sediments of moans, lacy sounds and twitchy feet. It’s a sight so gratifying, so pretty. Bitten lips, from Sehun, from himself, and this enraptured, utterly peaceful expression.

“Whoa,” says Baekhyeon then, so broken, “guys really are better at this.” He blinks at Sehun, hazy.

“I think it’s just me,” Sehun says, climbs up him and kisses his neck, where there is a gloss of sweat and all the lineated curves. It’s beautiful. Baekhyeon laughs, lowly, wheezy, and then chases Sehun’s lips for a kiss. Baekhyeon licks into his mouth and Sehun supposes there isn’t much of the taste of his come left after being washed down by generous amounts of spit. He’s still hungered, the way he kisses him, as though they are independent from the sexual acts, as though he isn’t sated.

“What do you like?” Baekhyeon asks. “What do I do to you?” He holds Sehun’s face in his hands. Smooshes his cheeks.

Sehun doesn’t need much. He could hump the mattress as he is right now and he will come in a couple of seconds, but this isn’t what comes to mind. “I have some toys,” Sehun confesses. He shifts, adjusts himself.

“Oh,” perks Baekhyeon, a terse release of a breath. The way he touches him, even though his tone has passed back into non-sexy territory, is still slow, purposeful, sensual. He shifts too then, places himself so that Sehun’s cock rests on his hip, higher, where there is rotundity. He dodges and sucks on Sehun’s ear lobe, scrapes his teeth on it before he says, “What kind? What do you do with them?

Sehun giggles, out of tickles, and grinds down, just one swipe, to alleviate the strain of his cock. It’s not enough. He takes Baekhyeon’s hand from his shoulder, twines their fingers for a second, and guides it down between their bodies. He has a fragment of a thought that maybe Baekhyeon would hesitate touching him there, but he doesn’t, he fully presses his hand to Sehun’s cock, cups him, grinds the bridge of his palm onto the protrusion of the head. He then gives a squeeze, and Sehun feels himself staining the front of his pants with precome, throbbing.

He only remembers that he has something to answer when he meets eyes with Baekhyeon again. “Put them up my ass. Fuck myself with them. Things like that.”

Baekhyeon’s response is to open his pants, unseeing, but deft, and grab at him through his underwear. “Fuck, that’s hot,” he says. Sehun groans, wiggles, looking to rid himself of his jeans.

“I think it’s just me,” he says, finally making it so the waistband is down past his ass. Baekhyeon jabs him with his free hand, while the one on his cock tugs, squeezes, makes him moan. This is all he gets before Baekhyeon revs up, twists them, and yanks everything off Sehun. Pants and shirt and underwear all discarded in a blink. The chillness of the room hitting his skin has him breaking into goose bumps, body astir with anticipation.

Baekhyeon falls onto him, palms on his thighs, breath sweet. “Show me what you do.”

Sehun shivers, muscles tautening, as he brings them together, hip to hip, bare, warm, incredible. Baekhyeon’s satisfied sigh diffuses onto Sehun’s lips, sapid, sticky.

Sehun barely finds it in himself to pull away and to reach under the bed, and feel around for the little box he keeps there. He plucks the first bottle he finds, turning back, uncapping it. It’s the oil based, scented one. The air between them becomes florid as Sehun pours some into his hand, missing in the dark and spotting the sheets too. He doesn’t have to try to make the fluid slide down his fingers, because Baekhyeon places his hand over Sehun’s, dips digits into the lube puddle, before he tangles them with Sehun’s, coats them together, warming it up at the same time. He breaks the touch when both of their hands are slippery, and nudges at Sehun until he has a knee hiking up to Baekhyeon’s waist.

They’re face to face, on their sides, Baekhyeon patient, awaiting, pulling at Sehun’s thigh to open him up. His dry hand is again on his cock. Long, languid strokes.

All the light is on Sehun’s face, while he can barely see Baekhyeon’s, and he wonders what he’s seeing in his eyes, what expression he’s donning for him to be so incited by it, so driven to please Sehun.

He doesn’t delay the press of his finger, the middle one, getting it in all the way, not hurried, but impatient. It’s tight, even with just one, and he twists it, the lube on his other knuckles spreading around his rim. He needs a bit more than that, he needs the stretch, and he already slithers a second digit besides the first one. The clamp of the muscle is strong, forces his fingers together. He thrusts them in and out slowly, a smooth, easing glide.

Baekhyeon gazes at him, touches him, pulls him closer, digs into the flesh of his ass. Sehun is wet enough that the slide of his fist on Sehun’s shaft is brisk, snug. Sehun seeks to press into it, press back into his own fingers. He cannot reach his prostate in this position, he can’t curl his fingers towards it – at best, he only brushes by it with his nailbeds. So he tries a third finger, just for the stretch, the bated forcefulness of it. It provokes a moan out of him, head drooping until he’s nearly hitting Baekhyeon’s forehead. He switches at the last moment and nests near Baekhyeon’s neck instead, nose to the juncture of it.

He’s too concentrated on that that he doesn’t catch the additional probing, Baekhyeon’s slippery finger touching his own. “Let me,” he says, whispers. The hand on his cock stills, and Sehun sucks in a breath when he barely has time to remove his own digits before Baekhyeon has two of them plunging into him to the knuckle.

It’s him who emits a little sound, overwhelmed, surprised, sugary. Sehun responds by bringing his hips closer, trembling, lips pared for a kiss under Baekhyeon’s jaw. The fingers coil, wave, a movement that is careful and regulated. Sehun, bestirred, searches for his lips, and they kiss and breathe and kiss and moan as they slot into a cadence. “This feels…” Baekhyeon gasps, changing the thrusting of his fingers from an in and out push to a prodding, the pads of his fingers in contact with his walls. It’s sleek, velvety, hot, cramped, Sehun _knows_. It’s enjoyable even for the fingers. “How do you not wanna bury your cock into yourself when you do this? “

“Oh fuck,” pants Sehun, not knowing how to control the trepidation of his body. His thigh tightens over Baekhyeon’s waist. “I’d rather take yours.”

“Fuck,” Baekhyeon’s thumb scratches at the head of Sehun’s cock. “You want me to fuck you.”

“Yes,” moans Sehun. “ _Yes._ ”

A frown appears on Baekhyeon’s face, strained, agonal, and his fingers pull out, and swiftly push back into Sehun as three. Sehun starts, bucks. It’s all the skill, and the fact that he’s not the one in charge, something about this that makes him tremble so hard. And how new the sensation is, not inanimate like a toy, not like his own fingers, but a shift and a fill that is foreign enough, uncontrollable enough that makes it all the more scrumptious.

He wiggles his fingers as they come aligned, tight together, reaching in deep, the tips of his digits circling his prostate, while there is a pull at his rim in a way that bring attention to the stretch. Instead of being painful, it is just strong, consuming. He’s slicked up enough that the friction is comfortable, can be quick-paced without any discomfort. The rest of Baekhyeon’s palm slots in the crevice of his ass, pressed flush as he goes in farther, having all three fingers prodding, swirling over his prostate, the stretch of his entrance heightened. 

Sehun only needed so little to orgasm, and this is _a lot_ , an assailment that has him in a slight frenzy.

The compiling pleasure, layer over layer, the twist of his digits and the glide of his tongue over his. This full, luculent look of determination that he gives Sehun, eyes barely open, as he works inside him. Putting a hand on his nape, letting him breathe kisses into him, maybe a moan too, when he’s cruel, relentless, twirls the pads of his fingers over his prostate and brings his hips up for Sehun’s cock to drag on his tummy.

“I love the way you sound,” Baekhyeon says, eyes closed now, and working, working, as he listens to Sehun.

Baekhyeon, so lost into making a mess of Sehun, of having him both boneless and desperate, looks so beautiful.

His thighs push, seeking to take more, touch more. Kiss more. Sehun doesn’t doubt he looks like a wreck, but that doesn’t matter, it never will, not when Baekhyeon is taking such good care of him, jerking his cock and nipping at his neck and finger fucking him this good.

There is next to no preface to the impact of his orgasm, it overcomes him suddenly, a small cry flowing from his lips as he stills, tenses, and throbs into Baekhyeon’s moving hand until he spills everything. The aftermath of it is deliriously pleasing. A thrum streams through his body, and he moves along with it, lets it run its course until the buzz of his skin fades.

He opens his eyes, and what he sees is his spunk dirtying Baekhyeon’s shirt. It is still clinging onto him by a measly button. “I’ve thought of that,” he blurts dreamily. “Of covering one of your expensive shirts with my come.” Sehun’s mouth is running on happiness. “And your skin too. I wanted to see my come on your skin.” It’s pretty. Baekhyeon’s skin is. The little splash of the white-ish goo near his bellybutton compliments it nicely.

Baekhyeon titters, low, shallow. “Kinky.”

He only now removes his fingers, slipping them out of Sehun slowly. He lingers around, feeling for a second, before he pulls them away and wipes the frothed lube on the shirt. Sehun wrinkles his nose a little at the sight.

“You’ve fingered many asses before?” Sehun inquires sloppily, trying to blink himself awake. If anything, the insistent smile on his face won’t allow him to sleep. “You were so good. Suspiciously good.”

“No,” says Baekhyeon, taking off the abused shirt. He also uses it to wipe at the mess between Sehun’s legs, and Sehun purrs a bit and lets him. “I think your ass is a little magical.” Slap. Small, cute slap. Sehun giggles. So Baekhyeon slaps his other cheek, harder, before he throws the shirt away and comes back next to him.

Sehun only moves around to free the sheet under him and tuck Baekhyeon under it. He comes close to Sehun, nuzzles into his neck. He’s left a welt there that he salves with a subsequent, simpering peck. Baekhyeon’s arms twine around him.

He’s close to drifting off when he hears.

“This wasn’t just sex to me,” Baekhyeon whispers into his chest.

Sehun hears, pushes him near, writhes with him, happy. “What was it then?” he asks, maybe, not expecting much. This is soon, too soon, nothing much has had time to ripen, Sehun knows, and he is okay with that. He rests a hand on Baekhyeon’s hip, ensures that they’re touching everywhere.

“Something more.”

Sehun kisses his temple, and lulls him to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a new collection, the debut of a new designer in the company. It’s before nine in the morning, and Sehun is already here, standing still in a mayhem of people. The preparations are in full swing.

He catches Baekhyeon coming in, tall coffee cup in hand. It explains the lateness. And also, that he’s stayed up with Sehun on the phone till dawn. Everyone bows to him on their way, salutes and greeting, as cheerful as they can be at this hour. His eyes sift through the room, and they find Sehun without delay.

The artist who is painting his nails just finishes, leaving behind lines, shapes, in black and blue on the nude nail. His hair is curled, his makeup is on, loose mesh enwrapped around his shoulders, vegetal figures embroidered thickly on it. He’s all done, all dolled up.

Baekhyeon stands, stares, for only one more moment, before he darts towards him, at full speed, gets on his toes and plants a kiss smack and loud on his cheek. Sehun melts, legs giving in, both from shock and affection. He doesn’t even hear the gasps around them.

He pulls off, offering him that specific, sunny grin that serves as a greeting all on its own. Kittenish. He nods, nose scrunching.

Behind him, people are gaping. Staring.  The whole room is transfixed.

But Baekhyeon is smiling at him, and Sehun’s eyes cannot see anything else.

Baekhyeon turns then, harried, takes a few steps, stalls, turns again, barrels back into him, puts a hand on his neck, and tugs him to press their lips together fully. One slide, one little lick. Quick and timid and adorable. Sehun chases it back.

Sehun doesn’t know what he did, how all of a sudden Baekhyeon wants him so much, is so thirsty for him that he throws all inhibitions out the window. No hiding, they promised. This isn’t rubbing anything into anyone’s face. Baekhyeon just felt like kissing him, kissing him again. Just this. Only this. Nothing wrong.

“Better now,” he whispers, liking his lips, spreading the bit of lipstick he stole from Sehun. “You look gorgeous in this, like I knew you would.” A smirk, a pat on Sehun’s shoulder, before he really pulls away, and turns on his heels.

“Good morning everyone!” Obnoxious slurp through the straw of his coffee. “Let’s begin!”

Sehun feels tiny and liquefied, and he’s nothing but a puddle of giddiness. He loses his footing and hits into Jongin.

“I think he broke you,” whispers Jongin, in his usual puerile monotone. He steadies Sehun with a hand on his back.

“No, he fixed me.” Sehun blushes, giggles.

Jongin rolls his eyes at him. _Fondly_.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s dumb of them to do this. They don’t know what reactions they will receive, what sort of discrimination, how detrimental it is on the long run. Maybe getting fired. Getting kicked out.  Maybe something worse. So much worse.

But Sehun doesn’t want to hide. And if Baekhyeon is so – recklessly, stupidly – courageous with this, why would he not be, when there isn’t anything in this world that makes him happier, when there isn’t anything else that he cherishes more than Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

“Why can’t I throw you around? Why? Whyyy?” whines Baekhyeon, high pitched, as he tries to lift Sehun off the floor, and failing. “This is so weird,” he gasps, grunts, tires again. “I’m used to being able to do this.” His hands slip from Sehun’s hips to his ass, capitulating. Sehun’s feet never left the floor.

“Weird?” Sehun asks, pushing at Baekhyeon’s face so he looks at him and presents his grieving face.

Baekhyeon fidgets. His two front teeth scrape over his bottom lip. “I mean; don’t you want me to carry you to the shower too?”

This is too much cuteness. Sehun can’t even coordinate himself to laugh.

Baekhyeon’s eyes turn into tiny, sharp, judgmental crescents. “It’s not that I’m weak, it’s that you’re heavy.” He squeezes Sehun’s ass. “ _Very_ heavy.”

Sehun’s face is close to crumbling, as his whole being is. But still, his only response is picking up Baekhyeon, lifting him until he can do nothing but wind his thighs around Sehun’s waist. He yips, wiggles, but accepts it. He rests his chin on Sehun’s shoulder. “One day I’ll do this to you too.”

Sehun adjusts the arm under his ass so he sits well. “Does me doing this…bother you?”

It’s not that Baekhyeon can’t exactly throw him around. He can manhandle him, bend him, grab him, play with him just fine. It’s the whole of Sehun’s weight that he cannot bear.

“Yes. Yes it does. You have all this strength and I just…don’t. You can pretty much do anything to me, and I wouldn’t be able to fight you,” says Baekhyeon. Sehun stills mid-step, prepared to put him down and apologize. Sehun can’t bear the thought of having upset Baekhyeon. He can’t bear the thought of Baekhyeon looking at him in this light either.

Baekhyeon’s elbows squeeze around him. He closes in, and whispers into Sehun’s ear, misty. “It’s really hot. _Too_ hot.”

“Oh,” says Sehun, lungs unlocking. The quiver in his arms disappears, but the rattle of his heart doesn’t. Not yet. “Oh.”

Baekhyeon chuckles quietly, laid over the previous whisper in his ear. They’re in the bathroom already, and Sehun places him on the counter next to the sink.

“Don’t joke about things like that to me…” Sehun trails off emptily. Because it hurt. That little thing hurt. A lot. Doing something, anything, no matter how small, against Baekhyeon’s will is - it breaks him. “Just because I’m stronger it doesn’t mean I…”

He can’t look Baekhyeon in the eye.

“You still doubt me sometimes, don’t you,” says Baekhyeon after a while, voice tender. He’s still wrapped around Sehun as though he’s still suspended in the air. Tight. Secure. Sehun wants to shake his head no, but he can tell that the issue stems indeed in doubt. A smidgen of it. A septic smidgen of it. He sighs, turning his face into Baekhyeon’s neck. His place.

Baekhyeon’s fingers massage at his nape. “Why would I think that you’d ever hurt me? Why would I think that you’d ever intentionally make me uncomfortable? Why would I think you’d ever use force on me?”

The words burn, and Sehun burns too. “I would _never_ , ever, I _wouldn’t_ I—“

Baekhyeon’s palm presses his head back into his neck. “And don’t I know that? Don’t I trust you?”

It’s in the manner he says it. In the manner he holds Sehun that kills the doubt. Makes it resonate with him, makes him believe. He nods. “You do. You trust me.”

“A lot,” Baekhyeon adds. “So, don’t let me hurt you either, if you’re aware it’s not with intention. That isn’t...healthy.” His hand stops, and glides along Sehun’s jaw to cup it, and guide him out of his shelter. Sehun meets his eyes this time. “You can carry me anywhere, anytime.”

Sehun enjoys that, everything about it. Hugging him, taking him, all of him, twirling him around, having him clinging onto Sehun, being all joyous and pert and wiggly as he squeals.

He simpers, nods, accepts. “Okay. Okay. You too.”

Baekhyeon scoffs. “Not that I don’t want to carry my sexy boyfriend bridal style to bed, but I _can_ drop you. And that _will_ hurt.” Shy laugher.

“I won’t mind. Much.”

“Ya!” Baekhyeon shouts before he pokes at Sehun.

Sehun laughs, untangling from him. They really are here because Baekhyeon has to shower before going back to work. They felt like playing basketball on his lunchbreak, and there are still a few leaves in his hair. They look nice.

“One day, you’ll carry me,” Sehun tells him, helping him out of his – Sehun’s – tee.

“For sure,” says Baekhyeon, flexing his arms. But then he bursts into laughter all over again, and at last, he has to kick Sehun out of the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon has to leave for a small presentation this evening – a really boring one that Sehun shouldn’t be subjected to – so he will be left alone for tonight. He’s all dressed up in a light grey suit with a cloudy fuchsia pattern. Sehun watches him from the sofa – the angle of the walls allows him to see Baekhyeon inside – and he’s just reached for his tie, placing it around his neck when Sehun gets up and comes to him. He tightens the knot of the tie properly under Baekhyeon’s collar, foregoing the pin.

Baekhyeon simpers – no, it’s the same simper he’s worn for a few hours already – but now it is more curled, and he brings Sehun with him a few more steps till he reaches the drawers in the middle of the closet. He takes out a wooden box with a glass lid, the inside of it partitioned into six. It’s sizeable, heavy. All of his rings, by categories, big to small, imitations to genuine metals and stones. He opens it, but Sehun pulls it to himself before Baekhyeon gets the chance to pick from it.

Sehun smiles when Baekhyeon does. Baekhyeon then gratuitously presents his bare hands to Sehun.

There are at least two hundred pieces in the box, Sehun estimates. For now, he takes random ones, chains them up on Baekhyeon’s fingers until no part of the skin is visible anymore. Sehun has no idea why it is so fucking fun to put the rings on Baekhyeon’s fingers, but he’s oddly giddy because of it. Baekhyeon just lets him, amused too, not saying a thing as Sehun makes a bigger and bigger mess of the arrangement.

He stops after a while, and tries to do it right. There are rules to this. It’s a thought out placement of them. There can’t be too many big ones, too many slim ones. There can’t be many on his index, not too many thin ones on his middle finger. They cannot hinder the movement of his digits.

“Are you rehearsing for something,” Baekhyeon mutters suddenly. Imbued with cheekiness. Sehun startles, nearly dropping the ring he’s holding. He’s close to making it suitable, and it seems this last one – a twisted silver with three red little stones on it, same red as the accent on his cufflinks – will seal the deal. He slides it halfway to Baekhyeon’s index, where it locks in place, before he looks up at Baekhyeon. 

Baekhyeon can only hold Sehun gaze for a few seconds before he bursts into laughter, eyes crumpling until they become gold-lined crescents. “Forget I sa—“

“Yes, hyeong, yes,” Sehun replies once he understands what Baekhyeon is hinting at.

It’s not a thought that has ever crossed his mind, since it’s just not a possibility - there are no means for them to do this in this country, at this time. But it doesn’t take any pondering for Sehun to _know_ that he would want Baekhyeon to be his like that. He would ask Baekhyeon to be his like that.

His eyes fill, enlarge, not in shock, not in puzzlement, not incredulity, not anything Sehun can put a name on, but something that is fathomable to him – a whelming sentiment that Sehun feels as well. His gaze has an incandescence, so warm, so touched. And his dimples have appeared too, on either side of a tight, happy smile.

Nothing happened here, now, nothing more than Sehun assuring Baekhyeon yet again where his heart is. But the way Baekhyeon is looking at him – it’s like he asked - and Baekhyeon is pretty much saying yes.

“I’ll rehearse too,” Baekhyeon speaks, turning towards the box and browsing through it. He seems to be looking for a specific one. Sehun waits a few seconds, listening to the clink of the rings hitting into each other. It reminds him of the sound of a music box.

Baekhyeon finds the ring he’s looking for. It’s a double one – two bands chained together by a thin link, one of them golden and the other silver. Baekhyeon takes Sehun’s hand and tries each of his fingers in turn to fit it. Sehun’s hands are much bigger than Baekhyeon’s, more knobbly too. It only fits on the pinky of his left hand, but it sits perfectly.

Sehun looks at his hand with it. The ring is quite eye catching. He hasn’t taken off the nail polish from the shoot a week ago, and it’s this small decoration that somehow makes it look so good on his hand.

“I’m not giving it back,” Sehun says, toying with it.

Baekhyeon puts both hands on Sehun’s nape, gently - the rings are still cold on his fingers - and pulls at Sehun to lean in. “Don’t _ever_ give it back to me,” he commands, before he kisses Sehun until he sees stars.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s staring. Baekhyeon is staring. A glowing, auric tint to his eyes. He blinks as he gazes from his page to Sehun, hand still working, and it’s just _so_ fond, before he goes back.

“Are you in love with me now?” Sehun inquires, sliding out from behind Baekhyeon, hopping a leg over him to straddle his thighs. Baekhyeon finishes drawing his line, and then looks at him. It happens. The same change. That quelling. Not focused and not defocused, but blithe and soft. _Soft_.

“You’re looking at me the same way I look at you,” Sehun fiddles, explains, hopes.

A fracture, where the world comes to a brief standstill, stops spinning and waits for his response too. Sehun’s mind is reeling so much that it’s blank. Baekhyeon is still staring, the thin, wiry frames of his glasses sliding down his nose. His mouth curls, a closing, hiding floret.

“Yes.” A beam, stretching tooth by tooth until it pokes at his cheeks, turns them round and plump, very very cute and very very lovely. “I can’t even think anything else besides yes, because yes. So much yes.”

And then Baekhyeon’s _embarrassed,_ his ears pink and his grin bashful and his stare, yes, yes definitely one of a man in love. Sehun is pretty big and pretty heavy, but that doesn’t stop him from collapsing over Baekhyeon and taking him in a tight and warm embrace. Baekhyeon hides into his neck, rubs his nose there, all the while little titters rake his chest.

“It was easy. Too easy to fall for you,” he continues, in a fragile, breathy voice, and Sehun squeezes him tighter, stamps a kiss to his temple, and it _tickles_ , and Baekhyeon is giggling and Sehun’s hand, without him looking, already knows where to reach over his face to poke the little dimple. Baekhyeon giggles _harder_ and _cuter_ and Sehun loves him _so_ much. “I feel stupid now. Could’ve allowed myself this sooner. Could’ve had you like this sooner.”

“It was the flirting, wasn’t it?”

“Nah, it was just you.”

Okay, Sehun might lick him now. He does. Baekhyeon says eww, but he likes it anyway, because he loves Sehun too. _Holy shit_.

 

 

 

 

 

Baekhyeon refuses to bundle up suitably for the weather because _outfit_. He is cold, though he won’t admit it. He will shiver and hide his hands in his pockets and walk tall and straight as if he’s owning the damn sidewalk. Sehun lets him get away with this a single time before he wraps him up in his biggest, thickest coat and two scarves and tucks him under his arm. Only his nose pokes out. It’s very red. Sehun is continuously, torturously tempted to kiss it.

They’re on a date, perhaps - they never named it so. It’s just them, feeling adventurous on a day it shouldn’t be this cold, wandering through the streets, through the lights. They hold hands, covered by the long sleeves of their jackets, dragging each other from place to place, food cart to food cart, fattening up for winter.

Some sort of festival is taking place around, plenty of students out, and music, and some interesting decorations. It’s kind of too pretty for them to resist taking pictures of everything and anything. That doesn’t turn out well because they are both absolute shit at taking pictures. He would have expected Baekhyeon to be better, given how artsy he is, and sensible about these things, but it’s mostly a chaos of half-cut faces, blurriness and jitter. It also seems Sehun isn’t capable of making a not-dumb face if it’s not in front of a professional camera.

They sit on the ledge of a fountain they shouldn’t be sitting on and scrolling though the pictures on Baekhyeon’s phone. “We really suck,” he says with sorrowful acceptance. Sehun nods his agreement. “Well, we’ll just have to remember this instead.”

“With our minds,” Sehun says. Sehun would gladly wipe out everything he knows to make space for as many Baekhyeon memories as possible. He knows it doesn’t work like that, but he’s in love and everything makes sense to his enamoured mind.

“Don’t tell Mina I can’t take pictures. She won’t respect me anymore.” Eyes wide, as if that’s terrifying. It is a bit terrifying, in fact, yes. 

“I’m taking it with me to the grave,” promises Sehun.

Baekhyeon scrolls a little more through the pictures. “But still!” he bursts a moment later. “We need a stupid couple selca!” He jumps Sehun, pulls him close, twists his face and raises the phone.

Sehun isn’t prepared to be met with a very wet kiss from Baekhyeon, and he startles, nearly having the both of them toppling over into the fountain, before Baekhyeon steadies him, begins laughing, and the picture is taken with a click. “Murder me next time, will you,” gasps Sehun afterwards. He kisses Baekhyeon again though, tweaking the hood of his coat over his head so the lock of their mouths is hidden from view.

When they part, Baekhyeon is winded, flushed. Adorable. They remember about the pic then.

Only their lips fit in the frame, a bit of jaw, a bit of neck, so close that the smudge of dry sauce at the corner of Baekhyeon’s mouth is visible. And their smiles, that has their lips misfitting, pulling, dimples.

They’re both silent for a second before Sehun speaks. “It’s perfect.”

“I’m framing this!” perks up Baekhyeon.

“Please.”

His nose scrunches, and he laughs. Pretty. It’s something that Sehun won’t forget - the sight of Baekhyeon’s puffs of happiness, white into the night, mixing with Sehun’s, eyes tiny, lips wide.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ll look at it,” Sehun says as they’re going home, when Baekhyeon complains about how no one has seen his outfit today.

“Liar,” accuses Baekhyeon, staying still for Sehun to undo the scarf around his neck. He made a knot so complicated that Baekhyeon has no idea how to loosen. “You’re just gonna look at me.”

“Caught me,” Sehun whispers, slipping the last button of his coat. He slides it off his shoulders and puts it on the hanger before he steps into the living room. It smells like home, their home, a combo of both Sehun’s oktapbang and the slightly inky, rosy smell of Baekhyeon’s apartment.

He sits on the sofa and signals for Baekhyeon to start his show. Baekhyeon simpers, gleeful, and turns on one more light. Then he begins to parade as though on a catwalk. He has a dark mauve pinstriped suit on, with a double breasted blazer, a cluster of floral, golden vines around the lapels, details that are around on his cuffs too. A chain earring hanging from the lobe of his ear with an ornament that climbs up the shell. A recherché, vintage-style watch on his wrist.

His walk is, in fact, modelesque, proper. He has the blank stare, the aloofness, the straight back, the aligned feet, his pelvis negligently angled forward. He twirls, then passes by Sehun’s eyes again. And again.

Sehun’s mouth is dry. He feels like crawling into a corner and wailing like a wounded animal. Well, he is wounded. Why does Baekhyeon look so good. Why is he so adorable too. What even is he made out of that is so…

“Hey, you okay?” Baekhyeon asks.

No. Yes. No. _No_. “Why aren’t I touching you yet?”

Baekhyeon shrugs. “I don’t know, why aren’t you.” Blink blink blink.

Sehun gets up and barrels into him, picks him up, envelops his cute little sexy as fuck boyfriend in a hug.

“Wow, you’re so whipped,” Baekhyeon croaks into his chest.

“I know.” Sehun snivels.

“It’s okay. I am too.” He rounds his arms around Sehun.

“We’re so fucked.”

“Yeah.”

 He gips Sehun’s hip, and raises on his toes until his mouth makes it to Sehun’s ear. “Let’s fuck.”

Sehun giggles, sways with him a bit, and Baekhyeon doesn’t giggle with him and - “Oh shit, you’re serious,” he gapes, pulling away to scrutinize Baekhyeon’s face. It’s _wicked_. Sehun shivers.

“Of course I am,” he smirks. And pushes, actually pushes, hands on Sehun’s shoulders, making him walk backwards, and then Sehun is falling, landing onto Baekhyeon’s bed, in his bedroom, with Baekhyeon on top of him, covering his body with his own.

Baekhyeon’s forearms are resting on his chest. Sehun is too sturdy, worked too much already, for there seems to be no physical weigh on him. Just flutters and lightness and Baekhyeon’s forehead pressed to his. Baekhyeon grins at him, impish, tugs at his ear a bit, then breathes into it, “Love you, Sehun-ah.”

Sehun moans, eyes flickering shut. How much he loves hearing that. He delights in the moment, the flush of warmth in his chest before he seeks Baekhyeon’s gaze.

“I want to undress you,” Sehun says.

Baekhyeon peers at him with a bit of surprise. “Okay,” he nods, rubbing his nose against Sehun’s in the process, and rolls himself off Sehun and off the bed. Sehun follows him.

Maybe the start should have been hectic, rabid, desperate, torn fabrics and bruising kisses in the dark, backs pressed to walls and hips gyrating together, but Sehun needs to see him, feel him slowly, treat him well. Baekhyeon’s clothes aren’t made to be yanked at, nor torn, nor is he.

Sehun takes his time. First the blazer, which he drops onto the floor, splayed out in a way so it doesn’t wrinkle. His hands then, the three rings, the cufflinks, the watch. The tie, the collar pin. And a button. Another button. A first giggle, and another button, and another giggle – Baekhyeon laughing in his face more and more as Sehun bares him more and more. Sehun might be moving too unhurriedly, too delicately, and the glide of the material tickles him.

He’s peering at Sehun, a smile on his face. It’s…smitten. He looks smitten. Sehun pauses and muffles an unexpected chuckle mixed with a groan into Baekhyeon’s just-bared shoulder. He takes a few breaths into the skin before he pulls back and reaches for the belt. He tugs it all the way out. He unzips the slacks, undoes them, and slips his fingers underneath the waistband to push them off. They fall to the floor.

Baekhyeon steps out of them. Still peering at Sehun. Still smitten.

Beyond all the tenderness, there’s a charge to this that is inescapably sexual. His hands are trembling and his heart is thumping. Anticipation.

Sehun licks his lips and lastly, goes for his underwear. It’s a different kind, seamless, very elastic, and moulded to him. It accents the curves of his hips and the moderate swelling of his cock. Sehun slips them off, kneeling all the way down since they won’t glide down his legs. He rids him of socks too, along with the underwear.

Save for the earring, Baekhyeon is naked.

Sehun got to undress him, as he wanted. A wave of happiness washes over him. And Baekhyeon is lacking any bashfulness, just standing there and looking at Sehun as though he dares him to not like what he’s seeing. Not a chance. Not a goddamn fucking chance.

“My turn,” he says, urgently trying to take off Sehun’s thin sweater.

The thing is, he doesn’t reach all the way to yank it over his head. He whines, jumping, hassling, until Sehun has mercy on him and bends down. The sweater is now in the pile, his jeans too, after he wiggles them off.

Baekhyeon is skulking a little. Naked and gorgeous and skulking. Pink nipples, curved thighs, broad chest and broad shoulders, his cock half-hard. His hair a mess from the hood of the jacket. And skulking.

Sehun comes forward and envelops him in his arms, pulls him in and glides his hands down his hips and to his ass. His ass. So full and so soft, filling his palms. Baekhyeon arches with a whimper, his nose sliding between Sehun’s pectorals.

“Cling onto me,” Sehun murmurs just before he tightens his hands under Baekhyeon’s ass and hoists him up. Baekhyeon yelps, as usual – he will never get used to this - and winds his arms around Sehun’s neck. It’s merely a few steps, but Sehun takes all the care in the world with his balance, kneeling onto the bed and lowering Baekhyeon at the same time that he lowers himself. He braces on his elbows, on either side of Baekhyeon’s head, mouth to mouth with him, hips between Baekhyeon’s legs.

Baekhyeon’s palms go from his sides to his chest, back down, then over his back. A languid, broad dandle as he places feather-light pecks on Sehun’s lips.

They have had another hasty get off, but he was never really, completely denuded with Sehun. Not like this. Contact, as it should be, full, absorbing, Baekhyeon’s body fitting with his own, _skin_ , completing, spurring. A feeling so beautiful.

Upon him, Baekhyeon inlays caress after caress. Everywhere. It’s the same flesh, the same flesh he’s touched a few weeks ago, but now Sehun knows, Baekhyeon knows, that he is loved back. So this is another touch, one that this skin hasn’t felt before, from hands that didn’t know before.

Sehun kisses him – his lips are right there, all he needs to do was dip a fraction, part them, suck on them. Alternation. Deepening. Baekhyeon grabbing his ass and licking his lips. Sehun moaning, opening up liberally, biting on Baekhyeon’s lower lip. Alternation. Hips bucking, hair pulling, Sehun’s tongue gliding over, under Baekhyeon’s. Teeth on Sehun’s lip, a lick over the dents left. His mouth is all slick now, tumid, atingle. Baekhyeon’s, in the same state, meshing with his, forceful and gentle, fast and slow. Alternation.

A gasp and distance. There is no air between them to be breathed in. Baekhyeon trails kisses down his jaw, and places a palm on his shoulder, pushing. This is how Sehun ends up on his back, winded, and Baekhyeon straddling him, the cleft of his ass over Sehun’s confined cock.

Baekhyeon laughs, ragged, and bounces on him. “Nothing on you jiggles,” he says, scrutinizing him. He does it harder, grinding and bouncing, the mattress rocking with them. “ _Nothing_ ,” he stresses, wide eyed and amused, before he suddenly stoops for a peck.

“You jiggle enough for both of us,” Sehun responds, belatedly. Baekhyeon giggles, not embarrassed, nor deterred, because there is no way he isn’t aware of the complete hunger in Sehun’s eyes whenever he looks at Baekhyeon. So he ever so boldly takes Sehun’s hands and places them on either sides of his hips, but inward, so most of palms are on his tummy. He’s soft there, a tiny pile of it gathered under his belly button. It’s squishy. And underneath, not far, there is the strong wall of muscle, the shifts of it. He’s all like this, protruding panes of muscle – his shoulders, his chest, his back, his calves, and then soft too - his waist, his thighs, his arms. Strong and downy, slender and rounded. Superb. 

“ _My_ beautiful Baekhyeonnie,” Sehun says, dotingly. He loves all of Baekhyeon _so_ much.

Baekhyeon immediately collapses onto him. “Shut up,” he says, elongated and huffy.

“But you’re jiggly and beautiful and _mine_ ,” Sehun reiterates. Firmly.

Baekhyeon groans. “I am.” He captures Sehun’s lips in a kiss, shutting him up so good. His cock is rubbing against Sehun’s belly, and his ass is grinding onto Sehun’s – a consequence of their fervent kissing. They go with that, with a progressive, tight sway, as they bite a moan into each other’s lips.

Baekhyeon switches after a thrust from Sehun, dipping to paint a hickey on Sehun’s neck. His hand goes between them and palms Sehun’s erection. Sehun moans, jerking.

“Your cock,” Baekhyeon says, warm words over the warm kiss he left on Sehun, “Your cock,” he says again, rougher, fingers slipping under the band of Sehun’s underwear and pulling him out, stroking _, properly_ , tight and broad and fast, “is so fucking big.”

Sehun can’t process _that_ , he can’t do anything but sigh and push into Baekhyeon’s hand, seek between them and wrap his palm around Baekhyeon’s cock too, stroking him in time with Baekhyeon. He moans, tongue under Sehun’s jaw. 

“I wanna get my mouth on it,” he says, abruptly, onto Sehun’s lips. And then he’s gone, before Sehun even gets to react. Two playful sucks on each of his nipples from Baekhyeon and now he’s between Sehun’s legs, made comfortable. He taps onto Sehun’s thighs so he spreads them more, and raises his knees. 

Sehun runs his eyes down the length of Baekhyeon’s body. Nude, long and lithe, his ankles crossed together off the mattress. The striking dip of his lower back prefacing the swell of his ass.

And then his curious eyes, his curious hand as he wraps it again around Sehun’s cock. Light, delicate, warm, and dexterous in a way that only Baekhyeon’s hand can be. He pulls Sehun’s underwear a little lower, freeing his balls too. His face is so close to Sehun’s cock that he can feel the little puffs of his breath. His thumb dips between Sehun’s balls before his arched palm goes up and over the head, covering it with the foreskin, and down again, baring it as he dips to put a peck on it. Pink on pink, Baekhyeon’s soft, moist lips on his cock. His eyes fall shut. Another peck, open lips now, wetter, softer.

He briefly looks up at Sehun through his eyelashes. “I think my mouth is too small for you but,” he says, as though in apology, before he kisses it once more.

Sehun shakes his head and cups his face. He brushes away the hair falling into Baekhyeon’s eyes. “It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

Baekhyeon shakes his head too, pulling away and twisting his head until the thumb Sehun had placed on his jaw ends up in to his lips, then into his mouth, sucked in, licked at. Snug and smooth and hot. His tongue slides against the pad of Sehun’s finger and Sehun’s body seizes from the bout of arousal this gives him. He whimpers, chest tight.

“You want this on your cock, don’t you,” Baekhyeon says after he lets Sehun’s digit slip out. Sehun will have dreams about this forever.

Baekhyeon reads a response in his silence anyway as he gets comfortable, noses along the length, grips him by the base, doing short, minute rubs there. He licks up the whole shaft, tongue pushing. He angles his head then, makes it so the corners of his lips fit against the girth, a trail of thick saliva left behind, worked over by his hand. Somehow, not a single part of him is left untouched, untended, in a chaotic but keen manner, as he works more with his tongue and hands.

His eyes are closed, his mouth busy, while a steady, fragile moan sings in his chest. Sehun has all the pleasure given by the ministrations alone, and then the pleasure given by this image, by this unbelievable image of Baekhyeon getting off on giving.

Baekhyeon tries again to fit the head of Sehun’s head in his mouth, then attempts to fit more, lets to go down his tongue, and he chokes, face contorting as he pulls away with only a faint grazing of teeth. Sehun brushes away the tiny tear that falls from the corner of his eye. Baekhyeon simpers, mouth a wreck, before he’s back to enveloping Sehun’s cock.

He gives an iteration of sucks, the walls of his cheeks pressing around the head in obliging caresses. A glide of a tongue, grazing with the edge of the corona, before he pulls off, looks up at Sehun, grinning a little, the corners of his lips lifted while the flat of his tongue runs over the shaft.

Sehun’s elbows run from under him and he collapses into the bed. He shouldn’t have his eyes closed for this, but it’s hard to keep them open when he’s given so much stimulation. He manages anyway, propping himself back up and cracking his eyes open to catch every bit of Baekhyeon’s actions, catch his own thickness pulling at Baekhyeon’s lips and puffing his cheeks.

The whole of head is in Baekhyeon’s mouth, the tip of his tongue on his frenulum, and agile fingers on his length. The softness of his cheeks press to the sides, moving with each of his little sucks, pulling him in, wet and hot from all sides. He does this in few seconds intervals, before he lets go and tails his open mouth, tongue out, down the length.

Baekhyeon is becoming confident, daring, stroking him harder, and when he sinks his lips again down Sehun’s cock, he takes more, lets it go until Sehun feels a bit of resistance, the clamping of Baekhyeon’s throat that comes without him choking. Sehun is so close to coming from this, from how Baekhyeon is _no_ t pulling off, but tightening his lips and sucking, as though he wants to keep Sehun in there, close to slipping down his throat. Without his will, his hips push up, wanting more.

Baekhyeon chokes now, hard. Sehun doesn’t let a single tear slip down this time. He slides his hand to Baekhyeon’s neck, under his jaw, and signals for him to come back up, over Sehun again.

There is precome between parted lips, a silvery thread clinging onto red, thick and sticky. Spit everywhere.

“I liked doing that,” Baekhyeon says, breathy, rugged. “I like the taste of you.” He licks it off, pulls his lower lip into his mouth and sucks on it, releases it with a bite, and he gulps.

“I love you,” Sehun mutters, because that’s a little better than passing out right now, which might just happen, if Baekhyeon keeps smiling down at him with raw lips from sucking his fucking cock.

“I know” He licks Sehun’s lips too, spreading a thin layer of his own taste on them. “I feel.”  A kiss for the side of Sehun’s mouth. “Me too.”

It’s Baekhyeon’s cock against his, wetness, from the precome, from the saliva Baekhyeon left on him, a rhythm of their cocks chafing against each other as they kiss and mark. Sehun is on the brim again, in just a few minutes, Baekhyeon too.

“Fuck me,” Sehun moans out, pulling at Baekhyeon’s ass cheeks.

Baekhyeon doesn’t still. He twitches, his huffs erratic. He has one of Sehun’s nipples between his fingers, pinching, rolling. “I don’t think you’re supposed to have spontaneous butt sex, like, ever.”

They’re dick to dick, and yet he’s bashful when he says this.

Sehun cups his jaw, and angles him to glance into his eyes. “Not spontaneous,” he says. It only takes a short movement to rid himself of his underwear, from where it was already down too his thighs. He’s bare now, like Baekhyeon. He takes Baekhyeon’s hand – enjoying for a moment the feel of it in his own - before he guides it between his legs. Past his cock, past his balls. He doesn’t leave him exactly there, but Baekhyeon probes around and finds it anyway.

“Not spontaneous with how much I think of you fucking me all the fucking time,” Sehun divulges into Baekhyeon’s beautiful neck.

Baekhyeon’s hips jerk, drag. “Oh, fuck, what’s— “His eyes widen and dim all at once.

He grabs the base of the plug, pulls at it, presses it back. Sehun is relaxed enough, horny enough that the tiniest nudge sends sparks of pleasure through him.

“Do you just— “Baekhyeon swallows, red lips tightening. “Do you just wear this whenever?” he asks.

“Was thinking of you when I woke up,” is all Sehun says, all the reason he needed to clean up and slide it into himself right before they went out.

Baekhyeon’s mouth parts, releasing a conflicted sound. He stretches to touch his forehead to Sehun’s. “You’ve done this before,” he breathes. He hasn’t let go of the plug and he’s thrusting it, wiggling it into Sehun, not enough for it to slip out, but enough to leave tingles around his rim, to make him want to grind down on it.

“I have. Plenty of times.”

A weak growl resonates from Baekhyeon’s chest. “You want me that much?”

“Yes, yes, of course, fuck, yes,” Sehun kisses him, if only because he feels his verbal affirmation doesn’t suffice. “If you’ve got lube and condoms and _want to_ , please fuck me.”

Sehun isn’t asking. Sehun is begging. And Baekhyeon is quick to respond to that, to attach his lips to Sehun, cradle his jaw and press the toy into him as he mutters “I do. I want to.” He kisses Sehun again, hard, deep, “I want to.”

He pulls away, sudden, and a wave of coldness befalls on Sehun in his absence. Sehun looks at his ass as he pads to the dresser. Round and jiggly. Sehun wants to bite it. He _will_ bite it.

Baekhyeon is sprinting back to the bed then, hair flying around, and Sehun giggles, only a little, before Baekhyeon captures his lips again, hovers over him again. “I’ll fuck you,” he rasps. Clear, resolute.

Sehun wiggles his hips. “Please.”

Baekhyeon doesn’t play around this time – when he reaches for the plug, he takes it out, presses it in. The shape of it makes this oscillation odd, bumpy. Baekhyeon is focused on the way it disappears into him, eyes lowered. The view must be explicit enough, for Sehun shaves regularly – it became a habit after he was asked to so for the shoots – so it’s all clean, all bare and visible. Sehun nearly squirms in embarrassment before his gaze slides to Baekhyeon’s cock, and he sees it erect against his stomach, wholly wet with precome, throbbing, reddened. Baekhyeon likes what he’s seeing and Sehun can’t wait to have that thickness inside of him.

Baekhyeon slowly pulls the plug out. He holds it by the base with two fingers, intent on it. “It’s cute,” he says, as though he cannot believe he thinks a _butt plug_ is cute. “Cute plug for a cute hole.”

Sehun covers his face, groaning. Baekhyeon only spares a titter before he grabs his thighs, brings them forward, parts them, and they settle over his own. He’s sitting on his shins between Sehun’s legs, fingers lubed, and grinning faintly. Sehun shudders from this sight alone, from what it promises to come.

He circles around his hole, spreading the lube, taunting, over and over, with more pressure each time, until the two digits sink into him.

What the plug did was only reminding him of its presence, a hushed kind of stimulation – no stretch and no movement. It never reached his prostate. It wasn’t more than a tease. But Baekhyeon’s fingers do reach, do press. Swirl and thrust. Unfaltering, nimble. He needs so little now, in order to moan, move his hips for more, his cock leaking. He looks at Baekhyeon, one hand gripping the inside of his thigh, and the other working between his legs, his forearm twisting and straining, veins curling around it. A third finger, and Baekhyeon amps the pace, makes it so Sehun can’t even say anything anymore. He keeps that up until Sehun is panting, gripping the sheets.

Baekhyeon bends over him then, his hand slowed down, to kiss Sehun’s neck, climb up his jaw and to his mouth. “You like this so much,” he says, awed. Sehun’s hips buck, fucking himself down on Baekhyeon’s fingers.

“Yes,” responds Sehun in a moan, “you do it so well.”

Pause, then something similar to a jab, after which there is a roughness to the way he presses into Sehun’s prostate, distinct bursts of pleasure that make him twitch and tense.

“Fuck me now.” It’s breathy, naught but the ruin of a whisper over Baekhyeon’s temple. Baekhyeon raises, stares at him, more than lustful, more than adoring, more than beautiful. Sehun is so fucking in love.

Baekhyeon bites his lip, bites Sehun’s too and nods, simpers, nails digging into Sehun’s thigh.

It’s with his other hand that Baekhyeon rummages around the bedding, and then a condom is placed into Sehun’s palm. His hands are dry, and he easily rips the packet open. He rolls his hips once more, a long, drawn out ripple, before he slides himself off Baekhyeon’s fingers.

He raises higher onto the headboard, and he can reach, for his arms are long enough, and slide the condom onto Baekhyeon’s cock. He runs his palm up and down it a few times, for he likes this feeling too, feeling the hardness and pulsation of Baekhyeon’s thick cock, feeling just how unbelievably aroused he is. He moans, loud, lavish, for he hasn’t been touched, hasn’t touched himself in a while, and Sehun’s hand is big enough to encompass it fully, fit his finger together and squeeze.

Next, Baekhyeon gives him the lube bottle, and Sehun pours some into his already slick hand.

Baekhyeon braces an elbow besides Sehun’s head, while his other arm disappears from sight in between their bodies. He doesn’t see Baekhyeon wrapping his hand around his own cock, but he sees the movement from his shoulder, and then feels the parting of his mouth, against his own, the hot exhale and the following sigh. He scoots closer, hips to the backs of Sehun’s thighs, and his face hovering over Sehun’s. His lidded eyes don’t leave Sehun’s as he probes around, the head of his cock sliding around his hole. Sehun adores the feeling if his hot shaft slotting between his cheeks. He only holds it like this for a few more seconds before the tip of his cock fits in the dip of Sehun’s hole – less rigid than fingers, but blunder, broader, uniform. The penetration is controlled, prudent, delightful, until Baekhyeon’s hips jerk, a tottering sibilant of regalement emitting from his lips, and suddenly he’s sliding all the way in, pressed over him, weight on Sehun.

He didn’t imagine Baekhyeon inside of him could feel so different from a toy, or from fingers. But it is different - so much more pleasant, yielding, with a malleability, and pressed in deep. He’s bigger than anything else Sehun has tried before, and this fill alone feels so good. It gives a strong sensation, so focused there, the stretch arresting. Sehun cannot read it as pain, but as a heightened sense of the intrusion of Baekhyeon’s cock inside of him. Welcoming, accommodating. And Baekhyeon, Baekhyeon is breathing with small hiccups, or not breathing at all when Sehun squeezes around him, looking to adjust. He keeps squeezing, only to feel the breach of him better, and to feed his own arousal, make it effloresce through him.

 “Will you stop that now,” Baekhyeon gasps. His arms, on either side of Sehun’s chest, are trembling. Eyes pleading, clouded. “Or I might not get to do the fucking part.”

Sehun grins, surges up to kiss him, to pacify the small little pout that appears on his lips when he is being a brat and squeezes again, tighter, better, that causes even himself to moan.

Their hips are together and their mouths together, Baekhyeon lax on him – Sehun’s cock trapped between their stomachs and Baekhyeon’s balls sitting against his ass, trapping in heat. It’s a moment of intimacy they afford to prolong. Sehun doesn’t want it done and over with so fast, no matter how much his dick claims otherwise. He touches Baekhyeon instead. He can reach all the way down and grab and fondle a handful of his amazing ass, then go back up, glide along his spine, then down to his waist, dig his fingers slightly. Baekhyeon is sensitive there. He jerks, a sliver of a titter licked into Sehun’s mouth in response. They kiss again, quick, an interchange of sucks on the upper and lower lip that quickens until Sehun tenses and pushes his ass down, taking Baekhyeon back to the hilt from how he’s slipped out a little. 

“Now let’s do the fucking part,” Sehun says, tucking Baekhyeon’s bangs behind his ear. On his forehead, the baby hairs are already wet with sweat, matted to the skin.

Baekhyeon breathes out, grinning, and pecks Sehun’s cheek before he fucks into him. Sehun gaps, already dazed.

It’s the mere size, the thickness of him that has him pressing in all the right spots. He fucks Sehun thoroughly, deeply, fast now, really fast. Sehun can’t even sense the retraction of him before he’s already nudging on his prostate again. His hands are on Sehun’s sides for support, or just to touch, as his hips meet Sehun’s ass in a manner that doesn’t allow for their skin to clap, to collide. Instead it’s deliberate, rolls, swivels as he pulls back only to slam back in.

He slips kisses and small pants into Sehun’s mouth, and keeps moving, Sehun arching towards him with each thrust. It’s harmonized instead of being awkward. While the way Baekhyeon fucks him, handles him speaks of experience, it’s their understanding that makes it so good, their want to please one another. Teeth biting too hard and uncomfortable angles and clashes of limbs - none of that happens.

 

Sehun is running reverent hands down Baekhyeon’s back, pecks him, moves towards him, and Baekhyeon, responding, dropping his hips into Sehun, swerving to bite his earlobe for he knows how much Sehun enjoys that, and release a small moan there too, to make sure Sehun hears it as clear as possible. The bed creaks a little, which is nothing their groans can’t cover.

Baekhyeon won’t look away from him - when he’s not kissing him, when he’s not nipping at his neck – he’s always looking into Sehun’s eyes. Heavy but bright, heartening. And they are already slipping into blissfulness – an expression Sehun has seen twice before, and it was _beautiful_ , but he didn’t see it this up close, and it wasn’t this defined. Sehun couldn’t have been more turned on, but this is doing it, causes another ripple of arousal to spring through him.

Baekhyeon switches to grinding down rather than doing full strokes, rather than pulling out. He’s now concentrating the slide of his cock into Sehun, so he gets quick, long swipes against his prostate. Sehun reckons this must feel better for him than it does for Baekhyeon, but his pretty mouth is agape, pried open by little moans, and he isn’t relenting, he isn’t doing anything other than drinking in the sight of Sehun being taken whole by pleasure and fucking into him.

He notices the pass, the change in the feeling, going higher, and a flash of panic overtakes him – he doesn’t want to come right now, not yet, not while Baekhyeon’s speed becomes slightly off, losing finesse, likely caused by his impending orgasm rather than tiredness. So Sehun wraps his arms tight around Baekhyeon and turns them over. He’s straddling his hips now, and by reflex, Sehun reaches for a pillow to place under Baekhyeon’s head before it hits the headboard.

Baekhyeon’s eyes are widened, and he’s huffing. He gives Sehun a big smile – in gratitude - then a smaller one, and Sehun quickly darts to kiss before it disappears. He stretches it until they need a breath, and even when they pull apart, Baekhyeon is still simpering.

Sehun takes his cock by the base – feeling the lube around him and the pulse, the hardness for just a moment before he guides it back into himself. It’s like the initial penetration all over again, but as it now goes deeper, stretches him better, given Sehun’s entire weight is on him now.

He puts his palms on Baekhyeon’s shoulders and begins moving slowly. The work of his hips is messed up by the kisses Baekhyeon won’t stop giving him, by his caresses, by his hand lightly stroking his cock. It’s lax, but it’s there, and Sehun finds it hard to settle on a pattern, an undulation and a rate. Sehun tries grinding forward, tries up and down and side to side, then just by tightening his glutes in bursts to give a vibration-like feel, and all this mess doesn’t really matter because the pleasure keeps building anyway, it keeps feeling amazing, and Baekhyeon is under him and boneless and so gorgeous. He catches the glistening of a layer of sweat, thin enough that it makes his skin appear translucid. His cheeks as rubicund as his lips. Obsidian, half-mast eyes, commanding and pleading. His voice, as denuded as his body, pure and rough, saying no words, but still speaking to Sehun, still kindling him through shorn, sheer sounds.

And then the fingers of one of his hands is curled around Sehun’s hip, vehement, like he wants to imprint himself into Sehun’s flesh. He uses it to guide Sehun gently, how to take him and how to grind on him.

Sehun is close, again, and Baekhyeon is too, judging by how his thighs tense, seek to push up into Sehun, and Sehun only cards his fingers through Baekhyeon’s hair, taking it all away from his face. Lips shaped in a smile and exhales shaped in moans. The best combination. Sehun bends to kiss his cheek, allowing a brief cessation.

Baekhyeon takes advantage of that to twist them in their previous position, all without slipping out of Sehun. And now he pushes at Sehun’s legs, opens him up well to slide fully into him. Sehun is flexible enough for this to not hurt at all. It also gets Baekhyeon easier access to his mouth, as he doesn’t have to stretch as much. But they can’t kiss anymore, not with how hard they’re breathing, how many moans they have to spill.

Baekhyeon’s distance from him is the smallest, only to give him enough leverage to thrust. Slow. The slowest now, and the hardest. A metrical sinking of him into Sehun. Iterative, steadfast. Sehun cherishes each one of his thrusts.

Sehun’s mouth doesn’t even know what it is saying anymore, and Baekhyeon’s is the same, as they are both teetering on the cusp of the orgasm, Baekhyeon keeping them in this state with each press of his hips. Sehun squeezes around him, unintentionally, spasmodic, and Baekhyeon groans, comes closer, deeper, as the juncture of his hips touches Sehun’s ass. He’s not even breaking that contact anymore. He grinds into Sehun without parting from him, which makes it a focused motion, right fucking _there_ and Sehun cannot believe how fucking good this feels. 

They kiss now, to serve as a distraction when their orgasm is so close that their muscles are already tensing. The pace picks up, goes awry, Sehun not matching Baekhyeon thrust for thrust anymore. Sehun’s hands skip on Baekhyeon’s skin, at the small of his back, around his neck, where he’s wet with sweat, glossy, slick.

And they keep kissing until it’s Baekhyeon who comes first, who arches, arches away from Sehun, rises to his knees and bends back, his mouth still cleaved and puckered as though mid-kiss and a plummy chirrup of a moan slips past by them, high, happy. It glides stick and sweet through Sehun, courses like a caress. His hips are grinding into Sehun, fast, twitchy.

Sehun already has a hand on his cock, frenetic, focusing on the head – he has this, the harsh massage of his prostate and the goddamn view of Baekhyeon coming, brows scrunched. he comes too, a few seconds later. He faintly distinguishes Baekhyeon filling the condom as he twists, spine bowing when sporadic spurts of come land on his stomach. The clenching of his ass makes it so Baekhyeon’s cock is trapped in, the head of it squeezed against his prostate, and this extends his orgasm until he’s as spent as he could possibly be.

Baekhyeon’s nails scrawl down his nape to his shoulders. Sehun cajoles a few more drops of come from him, a few little moans before it passes into oversensitivity and Baekhyeon bends back over him, breathing hard, and nipping Sehun’s name, wrapped in a moan, on the side of his neck.

Baekhyeon’s legs give in, and he falls onto Sehun with a small plop. Sehun laughs, and winds an arm around his waist and the other over his ass. He’s besmeared all over with sweat. The scent of it is dense around them, fresh and heady.

Their chests are pressed together as they exchange whittling breaths. Sehun is pleased and buzzing and he cannot think of anything but Baekhyeon.

“We made the love thing,” he says. It felt like that. Errant from want, but careful, lasting. Like it should have been.

“In my bed,” Baekhyeon responds, voice frayed. He looks so sated. His body sleeping but his mind energized.

“It was amazing.” He kisses Baekhyeon’s temple.  Baekhyeon giggles into his shoulder, and wiggles until his softened cock slips out of Sehun. He lets out a sigh, idem with Sehun.

It’s Sehun who reaches to take the condom off and tie it. On the bedside table, there are Baekhyeon’s face wipes, and he uses one to carefully clean up his cock. It’s…cute, soft like this. A faded pink and kind of squishy. He’s nearabout cooing when Baekhyeon grabs a tissue too and manhandles him in a position to wipe around his ass. He lingers, delays some fingers around his hole. His fingers fit in the slight gaping of it through the tissue, and Sehun’s legs tense as he lets out a little sigh.

“Did it feel that good?” Baekhyeon inquires. His hand is still moving, wiping away the lube spread in between his cheeks.

“What,” hums Sehun. It’s a nice, soothing. He _feels_ fucked. The damage of the friction, of the intrusion – an aftersensation that is foreign and distracting in its intensity, but he likes it. Hopefully, it won’t fade too soon.

“Being fucked in the ass,” Baekhyeon says, _pouting_.

Sehun needs some time to collect himself. “I…yes.” He moves, accommodating for Baekhyeon to come back to him and rest his head on his outstretched arm. “With you, yes.”

“Have you tried with anyone else?”

Sehun is really happy right now. Sense and logic have no place here to spoil their stew of gloopy cuddles. “With me.”

“Oh. Were you better than me?”

Sehun hums. “No. You’re better. Your dick is great. I love it. I insist you put it in me every day for the rest of my life.” Baekhyeon is blushing at the compliment. A mixture of ego-stroked Baekhyeon and embarrassed Baekhyeon. His upper lip tucks and thins in the most adorable beam and kills Sehun.

“Next time I’m fucking you from behind. I _have_ to make your ass jiggle.”

Sehun smiles, turning towards Baekhyeon. He nuzzles close to him. “You promised me that.”

“I did.” Baekhyeon kisses him, a careless smash of lips that’s just squishy and yummy. Sehun launches a thigh over him to bring him in all the way so they can seal in some heat as their skin cools.

“I want to sit on your huge cock,” speaks Baekhyeon again, many minutes later, after he shifts, which has Sehun’s flaccid cock pressing flat to his hip. It sounded like an order.

Sehun groans, startled from his torpor. “We have chairs, they’re comfier,” he mumbles, overwhelmed. A few heartbeats later, he opens one eye and glances imploringly at Baekhyeon. “Please do that.”

Baekhyeon bursts into laughter, which rains splatter of saliva onto Sehun’s face, which is disgusting, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun can hide into Baekhyeon’s neck, but he can also kiss it now, suck on his ear lobe, sweeten, pleasure, merry Baekhyeon. Baekhyeon’s hand now gets into his hair, twists strands around fingers as he does it. Not press, just keeps Sehun there, wants him, loves him.

At the end, he gives Sehun peck, a rosy douceur on his cheek for being there, with him, in love. Every time. All the time.

Sehun’s been happy before, in all the years he’s lived without Baekhyeon, and with Baekhyeon but without the love, but he’s never felt like this, _this_ happy - with Baekhyeon loving him back _and_ being his best friend.

Perchance it’s foolish of him to think like this - he’s so young, so many things can happen - but he believes, based on the sturdiness they have now, that Baekhyeon will never let go of him, and that he will never love anyone else more than he loves Baekhyeon.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re drunk. And Baekhyeon is in _the mood_. The one mood that makes Baekhyeon the happiest boy.  

And Sehun has been hit in the face, knocked breathless and stupid by sappy thoughts like ‘you’re my sunshine’ for like, a few lives already, but now his mouth is all drunk on Baekhyeon, he himself is, all of himself, so he says it. “You are my sunshine,” tongue tangled, heavy, jolly. Baekhyeon is close enough for his laughter, the crass, genuine one, to mush wetly into his cheek. Sehun likes that too. Because he is whipped like that.

“What about at night?”

Sehun groans. Damn Baekhyeon. No. Actually not damn. Sehun loves Baekhyeon.

“My moonshine. My flashlight app.”

And Sehun really isn’t like funny, or really usually says things like thst, but Sehun is just really really very whipped. Baekhyeon is a hell of a drug. He’s _so_ illegal. That’s why Sehun incarcerated him in his heart. This criminal. Sehun boops him.

Baekhyeon gets on his tippy tippy toes, cups his face, whispers, “You’re my flashlight app too,” before leaving the lightest, gentlest little suck on his ear lobe, simpering and damp, and his cheek, rounded and pinked from his smile touches Sehun’s, and life is wonderful as fuck.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s snowing today. It snowed on Baekhyeon too. He’s all white the top of his head and his. His nose is pink and runny. He gives no preamble to Sehun when he opens the door for him beside this lost and excited look in his eyes that makes him look oddly vulnerable. “So I got into K-arts.”

Sehun goes closer, softens a little, because Baekhyeon is here and cold, and this is what his body does in his presence. “Like, you passed by the campus on your way to somewhere or—“

“No. I got admitted. As a student. As a student there. In the design department.” Excitement. Lost, lost excitement. “Me. A student. Me.”

Sehun brushes off the snow in his hair, fast so the warmth of his fingers doesn’t melt it, before he tugs him inside and onto the bed and begins unbuttoning his coat. “When did you even apply?” he asks, because there seems to be more strata to his bafflement.

“I don’t remember. I was home with wine and stressed from work some night. I really don’t remember.”

Underneath, he’s wearing one of Sehun’s shirts. It’s so big on him. Yet instead of looking like a hobo he just looks stylish. And also hot as hell. He’s gazing up at Sehun with full, frightened eyes. Sehun envelops him in an embrace, because he looks way too tiny and frail. There is a temblor through him, which Sehun is sure isn’t because of the cold outside. “You’re so happy about this.”

He pulls off after a few moments, his cute face ridging. “Am I too old for this?” He smiles exaggeratedly. Fake. “Look, do I have crow’s feet? Will the stinky younglings make fun of me?”

“I’ll beat their asses if they do.” These fuckers _daren’t_. “Have you seen my guns?”

“I don’t remember. I just remember licking them. They tasted like power.” He frowns, not even a wrinkle there, but slightly gathered brows and a pout. “Does this mean you agree I look old?”

He doesn’t, because even as he complains about it, he still never skips his morning and night routine of slathering about a dozen products on his face. His skin is smooth and hydrated. Sehun is rarely arsed to be faithful to his skincare. Thankfully, his skin is not hideous. Yet.

“No. You’re gorgeous and perfect and I love you.” Because Baekhyeon is gorgeous and perfect and Sehun loves him so much.

“What if I don’t have time for work anymore though? What If I’ll have to pick between going to class and going to work and I fail the year? Or if they fire me? Demote me? I’ll live on the streets. I’ll live on the subway station with that huge banner of you plastered all over, and I’ll have to rip it off and protect myself from the rain and stuff with it.”  

“You won’t live on the streets.”

“What, you’ll take care of me? Feed me? Clothe me?”

“I’ll take care of you, and feed you, but not clothe you because I definitely don’t afford the kind of stuff that you like wearing. And I like you more unclothed anyway.”

Baekhyeon narrows his eyes at him. His face is wrecked by all these little twists, all these feelings mashed together. It’s endearing. “Okay. I’ll go to uni naked.”

Oh god. “No. You’ll go to uni in pyjamas and flip flops like all the respectable students.”

“I’ll go in pyjamas. Okay. Okay. Then it’ll be fine, right?” He’s so earnest. Beseeching. Sehun hugs him tighter.

“Yes, you’ll be okay.”

“You’re not taking that back though, yeah?” He mutters, words blending with Sehun’s heartbeat. “If I lose my job or something.”

“Of course not. You’re going to move in with me and we can have a family with the three potted plants I have. I also know a very nice cat we could steal, if that’s not enough for you.” Sehun would steal cats for Baekhyeon, surely. Sehun would do anything for Baekhyeon. And he really likes cats.

Baekhyeon laughs. “Sounds great. I might just sabotage myself so they fire me only so I can move in with you.” It’s not probable for that to happen. At all. 76MM would be nothing without Baekhyeon. There’s a reason they hired him and gave him such a high position even in the absence of a diploma.

But still. “If that happens and you move in with me, you can fuck me _all the time_ ,” Sehun calculates, perking up.

Baekhyeon whines, makes to pull away from him. “We’re talking important things here, you _can’t_ just bring that up,” he scolds, lacklustre.

“Having your come in my ass at all times is a very important thing that deserves a very important discussion.”

Baekhyeon parts his mouth, no words coming out. He’s still a little wrinkled, a little shaken, eyes glassy. “Now I’m turned on,” he mutters, accusatory, defeated. Sehun pulls at him until he lays down. His hella sexy blue suit melts within the sheets.

“And?” asks Sehun, starting to undo the tie around Baekhyeon’s neck. He lifts and lets Sehun take it off.

“And happy,” Baekhyeon responds softly.

Sehun sneaks a knee between his legs and bends over him. “So I turn you on and make you happy,” he says, sliding his nose against Baekhyeon’s briefly. Baekhyeon nods. “And?”

He brushes the hair away from Baekhyeon’s forehead, and presses his lips there.

“And you really love me,” Baekhyeon speaks into his neck, placing his hands on Sehun’s waist.

Sehun smiles, which breaks the peck. “And?” He still has the tie in his hand, and he runs it under Baekhyeon’s nape and then behind his ears, making a bow of it at the top of his head, keeping his tresses behind. He smooths out the ears of it, makes them even. He looks like a bunny.

“And I really love you too.”

He’s heard this so many times and he’s still not accustomed to it. He is still hit with such a strong bout of joy when he hears this that he staggers, suffocates from it. “I hope we never stop being this disgustingly sappy,” he says, stifled.

“Not a chance,” says Baekhyeon, shaking his head resolutely. The band fits him so well. Sehun wants to pinch his cheeks. And cuddle him. Cuddling he can do. He pulls Baekhyeon towards himself, curling around him. 

“If I fail the year,” murmurs Baekhyeon, “you steal me a cat.”

“I’ll steal you a cat.”

Hum. “What if I end up loving it more than I love you.”

Sehun freezes. “Not a chance.”

Baekhyeon’s eyes widen. “But _what if_ — “

Sehun jerks. “Baekhyeon!” he exclaims, but Baekhyeon’s lax face burgeons in this magnificent, blinding simper that Sehun begins thrashing and Baekhyeon fights back and they roll around onto the bed, tugging and pushing until Sehun finds himself falling off the bed and onto the floor, Baekhyeon coming along with him, yanked by the hands they have tied. He lands on Sehun’s chest. Breathless. Giggly. He peers at Sehun, the tie half fallen on his face, nearly covering an eye. “We’re okay!” he shouts.

They’re more than okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> *wailing noises* im not writing ever again *more wailing noises* where is BBH i need BBH *even more wailing noises* oh god
> 
> ( You can read 'Memoriter' though if you feel like having more of these fluffballs ^-^)


End file.
